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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

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Class; E^6> - 
Book 



Copyright )l° 



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COPYRFGIIT DEPOSnV 




MAJOR J. OGDEN MURRAY 



Three Stories In One 



THE STATESMAN 



THE CONFEDERATE SOLDIER 

THE IDEAL SOLDIER OF THE WORLD 



THE SOUTH'S PEERLESS WOMEN 
OF THE WORLD 




BY 

MAJOR J. OGDEN MURRAY 

A Soldier of 1861-1865, C. S. A. 

1915 






\ 



^ 
^ 






DEDICATION 



This Booklet is dedicated to the peerless 
women of the South, whose loyalty, fidelity and 
devotion to the Confederate Soldier was the 
inspiration that made him the ideal soldier of the 
world, and engraved upon the scroll of fame, for 
herself, a record time cannot efface. 

THE AUTHOR. 



Copyrighted 1915, J. Ogden Murray 
©CI,A4n6130 

JUN 3 1915 



PREFACE 



'"p^HIS BOOKLET has behind its publication two good and sufficient reasons. 
■■■ The first reason is to give to the present generation, and our Southern 
children especially, a truthful idea of Jefferson Davis, President of the Confed- 
erate States, and his life's work for the American people, without regard to sec- 
tion, and we hope to refute, so far as we are able to do by this Booklet, the vile 
slanders that have been uttered against him and his people by the fanatical pulpit 
and press of the Northern States. 

We want our boys and girls of the South to know their fathers were not Rebels 
nor Traitors in 1861, but patriots, who obeyed the laws, and loved the Consti- 
tution as handed down to us by the men who made it to protect all sections alike. 
We want the whole world to know Jefferson Davis as we know him, the American 
Patriot and Statesman. 

Second. We want to incite in our children a spirit of study of the causes that 
led up to the war; we want the world to have a true story of the cruel, unjust and 
illegal war made upon the South and her people, waged with fanatical malice 
from 1861 to '65, to take from the States of the South and her people their politi- 
cal liberties granted by the Constitution. We want the world to know the people 
who hated the law, in their malice, because of the prosperity of the South, and 
if the conflict was inevitable and had to come, the South in morals had a better 
reason for her course than did the North. 

We want all the world to know that secession did not have its birth in the 
South in 1861, and we want to show that it was conceived in the brain of a Yankee 
Statesman and bora in the State of Loyal Massachusetts, before Mr. JefTerson 
Davis was born. We want all the facts presented at the bar of history, upon which 
we will rest our case, and with these facts, when we have passed over the River, 
our children can refute the charge whenever made that the men who wore the 
gray and followed Robert E. Lee, were Traitors and Rebels. With this statement, 
the reasons for this Booklet's publication, we present the facts upon which we 
rest our case. 

J. OGDEN MURRAY. 



INTRODUCTORY 



P_I E who now completes, with attractive words, fitly written, a life size por- 

traiture of Jefferson Davis, will have contributed to his countrymen of the 

present generation a biography which will teach truth, patriotism and 

honor by a most notable and noble example. Such a gift to general intelligence 

has been made after patient research by the author of this volume. 

Mr. Davis was the product of worthy, patriotic. Christian ancestry, as well 
as a result of training throughout his j^outh and manhood amidst the best as- 
sociations into the spirit of the citizenship which distinguishes the American 
Citizen of our Constitutional Government of free States and free Institutions. 

His Life is itself a book on which the student will eagerly explore a field Of 
great ideas, true ambitions, lofty aspirations, and high endeavors, all of which 
move together under moral and patriotic restraints to make a Character worthy 
of a place well worthy of a firm place amongst the notably great men of the World. 

Mr. Davis, President of the Confederate States, deserves to be understood. 
He merits honorable treatment. His name and fame are conspicuously con- 
nected with the Civil and Military events of our country's history during the 
entire period of his long, unsullied, useful life. 

Let the lives of all great men from all sections of the Union be fairly and 
thoroughly and fairly considered in the present era of our Country's 
estate, and in view of its greatest opportunity to enlighten the world in the 
principles and form of that truly Good Government which all the world seems to 
be craving now. 

CLEMENT A. EVANS. 



A Short Biography of Jefferson Davis 

President of the Confederate States 



AN epoch in Southern History began June 3rd, 1808. This day 
Jefferson Davis was born at Fairfield, in the grand old com- 
monwealth of Kentucky, that has given to the South some of 
its grandest men and peerless women. One hundred years 
ago this greatest of American patriots was born, destined to be the lead- 
er of a liberty loving people whose courage, fidelity to principle, and sac- 
rifices to be made, would write upon the pages of American History, a 
story that would for all time be the admiration of the world. The 
name of our peerless leader was written upon the scroll of fame by the 
great Creator from the beginning of time, and He watched over this 
child, I do beHeve, blessing him and directing his life's work for the 
best interests of the grandest people, and purest patriots the world has 
ever known. I hardly feel able to draw for our children the portraiture 
of Jefferson Davis, and his life's work for our people; but I shall do the 
best I can — Angels can do no more. 

Jefferson Davis came of revolutionary stock, who helped to carve out 
with their swords this grand nation, the envy of the world. No Ameri- 
can patriot loved his country greater than Jefferson Davis. His child- 
hood days spent in Mississippi were like those of the average American 
children of his day, spent in going to school, hunting, fishing and such 
outdoor exercises as were indulged in by our restless boys, who have 
made the distinguished men of this Republic. His first tuition was in 
the old log school-house of the earlier days, developing the great mind, 
forming the noble character that was to make him the peer of any man 
of his day. He was a child of personal courage, a youth of ability, a 
man whose strong will and grand intellect made him the leader of men, 
he idol of our people. When but a child, there was an incident oc- 
curred which showed the mettle in his make-up — it is worth reciting. 
Jefferson Davis and his sister were constant companions. One day 
while on their way to school, the boy had been telling his sister never 
to be afraid, that he was always ready to take care of her and defend 
her, guard and protect her from harm. Hardly had he finished telling 
PolUe how brave he would be for her, when a chance to test his courage 
presented itself. There was a character who lived in "the settlement 
near the Davis farm who very often indulged in the ardent; when in 
his cups he was inclined to be insolent and ugly. This fellow was a 
terror to the children of the settlement; they would scamper off at the 



Cfjtee ^totie$ Un flDne 



sight of the old fellow. This day Jefferson and his sister Pollie were on 
their way to school, passing, as they had to do, to reach the school house, 
through a thick, heavy woods. The children discovered coming toward 
them an object they took to be the old drunkard of the settlement, 
the terror of the children. Pollie became very much alarmed and 
wanted to run away. Jefferson took her hand and said, "Sister, we will 
not run; don't be afraid; I will protect you — have no fear." And our 
young hero boldly advanced to meet the danger. As they approached 
the object of their fright, instead of meeting the poor old terror of the 
neighborhood, they came face to face with a magnificent buck, his head 
high in the air with antlers spread. The children stopped; they had 
never seen such a beast as this before. The buck came close up, took 
a good look at the children, turned and scampered off into the forest. 
When the buck came close to the children the boy put his sister behind 
him to better protect her and calmly awaited events. Thus early in 
childhood we find Jefferson Davis the cool courageous spirit he was 
during his life, ever ready to defend the weak from the attacks of the 
strong and oppressor. At the age of seven young Davis was sent by 
his parents in charge of Major Hinds, a friend of his father, back from 
Mississippi to Kentucky, and entered as a pupil in a Catholic institute, 
known as St. Thomas, presided over by the Dominican fathers, who 
taught the best schools of that day. In those early days there were 
no steamboats nor railroads, the travel was by stage coach or horse- 
back, and this boy made the long trip passing through the country of the 
Choctaw and Chickasaw Indians to reach Kentucky. It was on this 
trip, 1815, Jefferson Davis as a boy first met and formed acquaintance 
with Gen. Andrew Jackson. The General and his wife treated young 
Davis with so much kindness that it inspired in the boy's heart a rev- 
erence and love for the hero of New Orleans that remained with him 
during life. 

When young Davis arrived at St. Thomas College in Kentucky, he 
was so frail looking the good priests of the institute took especial care 
of hm. The Rev. Father Wallace, who became bishop of Nashville, 
treated young Davis as a son. The reverend father had a bed placed 
in his owTi room that the boy might be near him, but Mr. Davis says, 
Father Wallace never tried to proselyte him from the faith of his father. 
Young Davis remained at the school for two years when his mother in- 
sisted he should return home. 

He left Louisville City upon one of the first steamboats put upon the 
river. On his arrival at home in Mississippi he again took up school 
work at the county academy. While at this school one of the teachers 
gave him a task which ihe boy could not do. He went to the teacher, 
candidly stated the case, and asked to be relieved. The teacher re- 



Ci)e statesman 



fused to do this, and insisted that the task should be performed or pun- 
ishment would follow. The boy, believing himself to be unjustly 
treated, gathered his books and left the school, going home. He re- 
ported his case to his father, candidly giving the details. His father 
listened attentively to his son, and said, "My son, it is with you to elect 
whether you will work with your hands or your head. My son cannot 
be an idler in life. I need cotton pickers and will pay you and give you 
work." 

The boy acepted his father's proffer and went to work. A cotton 
bag was given him. He went into the field with the hands, and worked 
day after day in the heat of the burning sun. A few days of this work 
satisfied young Davis that the school room was much less an evil than 
cotton picking under the burning sun. He went to his father, stated 
his inability to work in the field and asked to be allowed to go back to 
school, which he did, determined to do to the best of his ability the 
tasks demanded of him. And this determination was the great object 
of Jefferson Davis's life — to do his duty at all hazard. Duty with 
him was first. 

After a few years at this academy he returned to Kentucky and en- 
tered the University at Lexington, from which school he graduated. 
In 1824 he was appointed a cadet to the military school at West Point. 
He was then but 17 years of age. His classmates were Albert Sydney 
Johnson, Leonidas Polk, and others who became famous and wrote their 
names upon the scroll of heroes in the wars of Mexico and 1861-'65. 
While at West Point, Cadet Davis was distinguished for his manly, high- 
toned and lofty character, and his love of justice and truth. To illus- 
trate this phase of his character: 

One day one of the professors was lecturing Cadet Davis's class 
upon the essential qualities necessary to make a soldier. For some 
unknown reason this professor had formed a great dislike for Cadet 
Davis. Talking directly to Cadet Davis he said: 'T doubt not, sir, 
there are a great many who in an emergency would become confused 
and lose their heads, not from cowardice, but from the smallness of 
their minds." This insult was intended for Cadet Davis who was 
powerless to resent it, but the cadet bided his time and he had his day. 
A few days after this, again the same lecturer was teaching the class the 
process of making fireballs. One of the balls took fire and the room 
was filled with explosives. Cadet Davis was the first to discover the 
danger. He very coolly asked the professor: "What shall I do, sir? 
This fireball is ignited?" The professor said, "Run for your life, sir," 
and the professor ran for the door, the first to make the exit. Cadet 
Davis did not flee the danger like the others of his class. He coolly 



8 Cljree Stories In f)ne 

walked over to the burning ball, took it in his hand, raised the window 
and threw it out upon the grass, and by this presence of mind saved 
the building and forever silenced his enemy, the professor. 

One of the most pronounced features in Mr. Davis's character was 
his horror of doing the least act that would oppress the weak or wound 
the feelings of the humblest person. Throughout his whole life he ex- 
hibited this strong feature of his character. He was generous, kind, and 
sincere to his fellowman. He had the true idea of Christian love and 
charity the Master taught. His heart was filled with love for his fellow- 
man and devotion to duty. In the year 1828 Cadet Davis graduated 
from West Point and became a second lieutenant of infantry in the 
regular army. His first duty was at Fort Crawford now in the state of 
Wisconsin, 

The same characteristic that distinguished him as a cadet made 
him prominent as an officer and attracted the attention of his supe- 
rior officers. While stationed at Fort Crawford, Lieut. Davis was 
detailed in charge of a detachment to cut timber to repair the fort, 
The lieutenant and his party were in a fiatboat going down the stream. 
They were hailed by a party of Indians who demanded a trade of 
tobacco. One of the men of the detachment, knowing the ways of 
the Indians and their treachery, warned Lieut. Davis not to push the 
boat ashore. 'Tush the boat further out into the stream," was Lieut. 
Davis's order. The Indians seeing their prey escaping, yelling with 
fury, jumped into their canoes and gave chase to Lieut. Davis and 
his party. The Indians were gaining on the fiatboat, the men were 
greatly excited. Almost exhausted Lieut. Davis, calm and cool bid 
his men have no fears. He ordered a sail to be made of a blanket, and 
with this slender chance outsailed his Indian pursuers and saved 
his detachmentment from death or a worse fate, Indian cap- 
tivity. I cite these things to show that Jefferson Davis was a man 
of thought, a man of resources, a man of courage, who never lost his 
head. One other incident on this line before we take up the political 
life of Mr. Davis. 

In 1831-32, Col. Morgan, commanding the first infantry, U. S. A., 
sent Lieut T. R. B. Gardiner to Jordons Ferry, now Duleith, with 
a small detachment of soldiers to prevent trespassing on the lead 
mines, west of the Mississippi River. About this time Col. Morgan 
died and Col. Zachary Taylor took command of the first infantry. 
The lands upon which the lead mines were located belonged to the 
Indians who determined to drive out the whites. Col. Taylor sent 
Lieuts. Abercombe and Jefferson Davis with a small detachment of 
men to check the Indians and remove the whites from the lead mines 
until such treaties could be made with the Indian ^ to relinquish their 
ownership in these mines. 



Cfje Statesman 



These miners, who had taken up claims, were men of determina- 
tion, and did not intend to remove from the mines without resist- 
ance for what they claimed was their right to work the lead. Things 
about the mines looked rather serious. Lieut. Davis was given charge 
of the matter of dealing with the miners. He crossed over the river 
and boldly called the miners together. He informed them of his in- 
structions to remove them from the mines until the Indian title thereto 
could be obtained by the United States. Among the miners was a 
redheaded desperado, the leader, who informed Lieut. Davis that 
the miners had resisted former officers backed by soldiers, and if he, 
Davis, knew when he was well off he better clear out and take his 
soldiers with him. Lieut. Davis said, "I feel sorry for you all, but my 
orders are to move you by force if I must." He then said to the red- 
headed desperado and leader, 'T want you to walk a few yards into 
the timber that we may have a private talk." This the fellow consented 
to do. Lieut Davis candidly explained the Government's reason for 
the removal of the miners and promised them that all would be protected 
in their rights when the Government obtained the title for the mines 
from the Indians. After leaving the desperado Lieutenant Davis walked 
over to a large group of miners and made his first public speech. At 
first the miners made ugly remarks, but eventually listened in silence to 
what Lieut. Davis said. After making his speech he left, telling them 
to move as he would be compelled to use force if his orders were not 
obeyed. Some few weeks after this interview he again crossed the 
river to talk with the miners. His friends begged him not to go without 
a force. He took only an orderly and coolly went into a little drinking 
booth, a resort of the miners. Lieut. Davis bid them all the time of 
day and said, "My friends, I know you have thought over our last talk 
and have concluded to accept my terms and are going to drink to 
my success. So I will treat you all." These rough miners gave him a 
cheer, and he accomplished by kindness and tact what other men would 
have used force to do, thus showing himself, although young in years, 
a born leader of men. For this great success the Iowa legislature passed 
a vote of thanks many years after, when Col. Davis lay wounded at 
Saltillo after the battle of Buena Vista. 

Now we shall take up Lieut. Davis in the Black Hawk war and show 
you how he won his spurs, helping to make great the Government 
that took from him his liberty, his citizenship, and persecuted him 
as no other American citizen was ever persecuted. When the Black 
Hawk Indian war began, Gen. Winfield Scott sent two young lieutenants 
to Dixon, 111., to accept and muster into the United States service 
Buch troops as might present themselves. One of these lieutenants 
was a man of gentle, fascinating manners, affable, pleasant and courteous, 
drawing to him those with whom he came in contact. The other lieu- 



10 Cljtee Stories In SDne 

tenant was just as pleasant but most exceedingly modest. The first 
was Jefferson Davis, first lieutenant U.S.A., the second Lieut. Anderson, 
who was in 1861 Maj. Anderson, of Fort Sumter fame. On the morning 
of the arrival of the first troops for muster, a homely, tall and slender 
youth presented himself to Lieut. Davis as the captain of the company 
to be mustered. This homely young man was Abraham Lincoln and 
the young lieutenant was Jefferson Davis, the man who administered 
to Abraham Lincoln the first oath of allegiance he ever took to the 
United States Government. Jefferson Davis became President of 
the Confederate States, Abraham Lincoln President of the United 
States, and Lieut. Anderson, a prominent figure in the war of 1861 
-'65, and thus met for the first time the two men whose names have 
gone sounding down the corridors of time, names never to be forgotten 
while time shall last. In this Indian war Lieut. Davis was brought 
in close contact with two remarkable men, Col. Boone, son of the 
famous Daniel Boone, of Kentucky, and Maj. Jesse Bean. The courage 
and integrity of these two men were beyond question and their implicit 
faith and confidence in Lieut. Davis was known to the whole army. 
Maj . Bean was a close observer, he had but little education and was 
a man of few words. This man took great delight in hearing Lieut. 
Davis ta]k, and the lieutenant often talked with Bean about the phe- 
nomena of nature, telling him in scientific language the theory of cause 
and effect. Bean took it all in as Gospel truth, simply because Lieut. 
Davis said it was true; but one day Bean's faith in Lieut. Davis waa 
almost destroyed or at least badly shaken. Mr. Davis had been ex- 
plaining to Bean the laws which govern our solar system. Bean listened 
until Mr. Davis had finished; then turning to him said: "Lieut. 
Davis, I have always had great confidence in your learning and great 
respect for you, and I really did not think you would poke fun at the 
old man who loves you. As for your story of the earth moving and 
the stars standing still it is all bosh. Night after night, sir, when watch- 
ing my beaver traps I have seen the stars rise in the East, sail across 
the skies and set in the West. No man, not even you, Lieut. Davis, 
can convince Jesse Bean that the stars stand still." So Lieut. Davis 
gave up the scientific education of Bean. 

In this Indian war Lieut. Davis proved the mettle of which he was 
made, fairly and honorably, says his superior officers; he won his spurs 
and the confidence and love of his men by his coolness, kindness, and 
courage. At the close of the war, 1832, Lieut. Davis was sent on re- 
cruiting service to the city of Louisville. While on this recruiting duty 
he was called to Lexington. While there the cholera broke out in its 
most malignant form. The citizens who could, fled from the pest- 
stricken city. But Lieut. Davis, true to himself, true to his duty, re- 
mained at his post looking after the health and comfort of his recruits, 



Cf)e Statesman IX 



regardless of consequences to himself. An incident while Lieut. Davis 
was in Lexington again shows his goodness of heart. A poor white man 
and an old negro died of cholera. No one cared to risk the burial of 
these people; not so with Lieut. Jefferson Davis. He found after much 
difficulty a carpenter and he actually helped him make coffins for these 
paupers and with the carpenter buried the bodies in the cemetery, 
even helping to dig the graves. I tell this incident to show the example 
of the true Christian charity which filled the heart of Jefferson Davis, 
and I tell you this was the prominent feature in his character during 
his whole life — duty and love to his fellowman. How base is the slander, 
how malignant the hate, how vile the tongues of those who charge 
Mr. Davis with cruelty. How could such a heart as beat in the breast 
of our beloved chief harbor one cruel thought against a fellowman. 
In 1835 Mr. Davis resigned from the army, retiring to private life. In 

1843 he began his political career. In a canvass as elector at large for 
Polk and Dallas from Mississippi in 1845 Mr. Davis was elected to 
Congress. But prior to his election to Congress he was defeated for 
the legislature of Mississippi. In this brief sketch we can give but 
brief sketches of this great American patriot. But I hope to paint a 
portraiture that will give an insight into the greatness of this great 
man, Jefferson Davis. Before he was a candidate for the state legis- 
lature and subsequently elected to Congress he was never a candidate 
before the people for any position. At the time Mr. Davis was a can- 
didate for the legislature what was then known as the act of repudia- 
tion was foremost of all questions in the minds of the people of Mis- 
sissippi. It was paramount to all other questions. Mr. Davis's posi- 
tion on this question was simply this: He held that the Union Bank 
Bonds did not constitute a debt of the state and the debt as claimed 
by those who opposed him was unconstitutional; that the ques- 
tion was one the courts should determine. If the court held 
the debt legal and right then it should be paid, but if the debt, as 
he claimed, was unconstitutional, then the state should not pay 
it, and upon this issue he was defeated for the legislature; and 
upon this flimsy testimony the charge that Mr. Davis was a 
repudiationist is iDased. During the Civil War the United States Gov- 
ernment went so far to spread this slander that it sent Robert J. Walker, 
its financial agent, all over Europe, to promulgate this slander against 
Mr. Davis. Why Mr. Walker, who was personally familiar with all 
the facts in the case and fully understood Mr. Davis's position, could 
loan himself to this scheme of slander is to say the least strange. There 
can be no excuse for his conduct. He was a senator from Mississippi 
and could not help but know Mr. Davis's position on this question. In 

1844 Mr. Davis loomed up a star upon the political sky, as a party leader. 
In the national convention held this year Mr. Davis was a delegate. 



X2 Cf)ree Atones 3Jn Dne 

Van Buren was the choice of a large portion of the Democratic party. 
In the Mississippi state convention a resolution was offered that the del- 
egates from Mississippi should be instructed to vote for Van Buren as 
long as there was a reasonable chance for his nomination by the conven- 
tion. Mr. Davis amended this resolution by making John C. Calhoun 
second choice of the state of Mississippi, which motion was passed, and 
now Mr. Davis was before the people a party leader, which position he 
never lost. On December 8, 1845, Mr. Davis took his seat in Congress 
as a representative from the state of Mississippi. On the 29th of De- 
cember he offered his resolution which was: That the Committee on 
Military Affairs be instructed to inquire into the expediency of con- 
verting some of the forts owned by the United States into military 
schools of instruction. His next resolution was to establish a post route 
direct and daily between Montgomery, Ala., and Jackson, Miss. His 
first speech in Congress was made Feb. 6, 1846; the Oregon Question 
was before the House. From this speech I will quote such portions 
as will show the force and power of this great man and show how he 
detested hypocricy and cant. This hatred for anything insincere never 
modified during his life. In this speech he said: "The opinion has gone 
out that no politician dare to be the advocate of peace. When war is 
mooted, that wdll be an evil hour. The sands of our republic will be 
nearly run when it shall be in the power of any demagogue or fanatic to 
raise a war clamor and control the legislature of the country. Evils of 
war must fall upon the people and with them war feeling should originate. 
We, their representatives, are but the mirror to reflect the light and 
never should become the torch to fire the pile. We, sirs, carniot expect, 
we should not require our adversary to submit to more than we would 
bear, and I ask after the notice has been given and the twelve months 
have expired, who would allow Great Britain to exercise exclusive juris- 
diction over Oregon? If we resist such an act by force of arms before 
ourselves perform it we should prepare for war." He then drew a com- 
parison between the amiexation of Texas and Oregon occupation, deny- 
ing the South had been inconsistent in treating this Oregon question. 
"Who are the men," he asked, "who impute for us of the South sordid 
motives? They are the same men who resisted Texan armexation and 
most eagerly press on the immediate occupation of Oregon. The source 
is worthy the suspicion. There are the men whose constitutional scru- 
ples resisted a country gratuitously offered to us, but now they look for- 
ward to gaining Canada by conquest. In event of war with England 
I pledge the loyalty of Mississippi. Do you pledge your states?" 

How fortunate for the country that Congress had one man who dared 
do right and defend from the aspersions and slanders of the Northern 
fanatics the people of the South. This debate brought out very clearly 
another characteristic of Mr. Davis. His love for those memories that 



Clje statesman 13 



formed the glory of all the states. He said : "In the service of my coun- 
try I know no North nor South nor East nor West from sire to son. If 
envy is eating the bonds with which our fathers expected to bind us 
forever, the cause does not come from the South; our Southern atmos- 
phere does not furnish the cause to divide the country. When ignorance 
led by fanatical hate armed by all unchangeableness assails the domestic 
institution of the South I try to forgive for the sake of the righteous 
among the wicked. I leave to silent contempt the malign prediction 
of the member from Ohio and remember the manly sentiments of the 
gentlemen from the West." Closing his speech, Mr. Davis uttered 
these prophetic words: "The grants of power are general and therefore 
many things must attach as incident. If the states deny the means 
necessary to the existence of the Government nothing is more sure than 
it will usurp them and a conflict will arise between rival powers inju- 
rious to both. If, on the other hand, the Federal Government by 
indirection seeks more than is proper to its functions and necessary 
to their exercise, indiscriminate opposition may be general and liberality 
of patriotism be lost in the conflict. The perpetuity of our union re- 
quires the states, whenever the grants of the Constitution are inadequate 
to the purpose for which it was ordained, to add them from their sover- 
eignty as they may be needed." How far this great man's prophetic 
eye looked into the future and saw the disaster that was to follow the 
fanaticism of the North and her hatred for the South and her people. Mr. 
Davis loved the Union with a patriot's devotion. He loved the 
Constitution made by our fathers for all sections of our country, and he 
never ceased to plead that it should not be destroyed by the fanatics of 
the North. 

In 1845 the Texas annexation took place. Mexico threatened to 
invade Texas. Gen. Taylor with the United States army was ordered 
to protect the Texas border The war cloud hung over the country. 
President Polk offered the appointment of brigadier-general of volun- 
teers to Mr. Davis. He declined. Read why he did so. 

"I prefer to be elected by the volunteer troops I command. After 
the election and the elective right of the volunteers ceases, the appoint- 
ing power should be the governors of the states whose troops are to be 
commanded by the general." So great was Mr. Davis's love and re- 
spect for the rights of each state and his fellowman no honors could 
tempt him to overstep the line marked by equity and justice. 
Before Mr. Davis left Washington for the scene of war he called upon 
Gen. Winfield Scott to say farewell. The general tried to persuade 
Mr. Davis to arm but four companies of his regiment with rifles. Mr 
Davis insisted his regiment should all have rifles; that with rifles the 
Mississippians would fight better with this arm as they were used to 
handling it. They had no faith in the old flint-lock arms used by the 



14 Cfjree Stories 3in ©ne 

Government. He showed his fine judgment in this matter, insisted and 
obtained rifles, and his proof of the fact that he knew what arm was best 
for his men was proven on many a bloody battle-field in Mexico, when 
the Mississippi troops under command of Jefferson Davis showed their 
perfect use of the Mississippi rifle as did their descendants in 1861-'65. 
Gen. John E. Wool said, in speinal orders, this of Col. Davis and his 
regiment: ''The Mississippi Riflemen, under Col. Davis, were highly 
conspicuous for gallantry and steadiness at Monterey, acting like vet- 
eran troops. Col. Davis, though severely wounded, remained in the 
saddle until the close of the battle; his distinguished coolness and cour- 
age and heavy loss of his regiment on this day entitles him to the par- 
ticular notice of the Government." This report was made by Gen. 
Wool in Mexico, in 1849. 

After the Mexican war was over Mr. Davis returned to his home in 
Mississippi, fully determined to settle down in private life. But the 
people of Mississippi had other views and needed Mr. Davis's services 
in the United States Senate. Gov. A. G. Brown appointed Mr. Davis 
United States Senator for Mississippi, just two months after Mr. Davis 
returned from Mexico. There was one general approval throughout 
the state when Gov. Brown made the appointment. When Mr. Davis 
took his seat in the United States Senate he was suffering much with 
his wound and compelled to use crutches. The members of the Senate 
gave the young Mississippian a cordial and unreserved welcome as a 
member of the 29th Congress. Mr. Davis had won reputation as a 
brilliant young member, as a soldier over the border he had won his 
spurs in defense of his country's honor. He, with his regiment, had 
demonstrated American valor on the battlefield and won the love of 
his fellow countrymen. Mr. Davis was appointed in the Senate on 
several important committees, the most important being that of Mil- 
itary Affairs. Early in January there arose in the Senate a debate 
which gave proof to the country of Mr. Davis's intelligent conception 
of all questions connected with Mexico. Mr. Cass, of Michigan, had 
reported from the Military Committee what was called the "Ten Regi- 
ment Bill." This bill was inspired by the War Department. Mr. Cal- 
houn, of South Carolina, opposed this bill as he had opposed the Mexi- 
can War — in fact, all the Southern Senators opposed this bill. Mr. 
Calhoun saw in the bill the specter of a conquered country, a suspended 
autonomy. While Mr. Crittenden could see nothing in the bill but the 
great bugbear of a military Frankenstein to destroy all that was good, 
not so with Mr. Davis. In answer to the objections of Messrs. Calhoun, 
Crittenden, and others to this bill he took a broad, intelligent view of 
the situation. In answer to the fears of these gentlemen that Mexico 
would ultimately be absorbed by the United States and present to the 



Cl)e ^tate0man 15 



world another dismembered Poland, Mr. Davis said, "I can accept Mr. 
Calhoun's resolution and still vote for this bill. Let me ask you, gen- 
tlemen, Is Mexico conquered? Is any part of it conquered? Conquest, 
a^ laid down by some writers, is three kinds. Ruin is one of these kinds 
of conquest, but we have not ruined Mexico and God forbid we ever 
should. The moral feeling of this country would never justify such a 
course. Another mode of conquest is to hold a country by controlling 
its government; that is not suited to the genius of our country. We 
send no pro-consul abroad — no provincial army to direct the govern- 
ment of the country. We recognize as the great basis of all institu- 
tions self-government. The other mode of conquest is by colonizing 
a country. We cannot do that. In neither of these modes, then, have 
we conquered Mexico." To Mr. Crittenden's dread of the regular 
soldier, Mr. Davis said: "If this country were invaded I would turn, sir, 
to the great body of the militia. I use the terms of volunteer and militia 
as synonymous — for its defense. But when we are engaged in a for- 
eign war and only defensive operations are carried on, we then have 
reached the point where regulars are the force, which should be employed 
where the militia may not be called upon to justify the disruption of 
society which would result if we brought out that grand class of soldiers 
who constitute our volunteers. As long as you keep the high-bred men 
for battle they will bear any privation, submit to every restraint, and 
discharge every duty. But you cannot expect these men who have 
broken all home ties in order to fight for their country, will sacrifice 
themselves to the mere duty of the sentinel." How well proven was 
this declaration of Mr. Davis shown in 1861-'65? The Confederate 
army was an army of high-bred men and they were the ideal soldiers 
of the world. In the course of the debate upon this ''Ten Regiment 
Bill" it was made clear that he was just the man for chairmanship of 
the Senate Military Committee, and to this position he was elected in 
the 31st Congress almost unanimously. Thirty-two votes were given 
him to five votes for all others. On July 6, President Polk laid before 
the Senate a copy of the treaty of peace between the United States and 
Mexico. 

While in the U. S. Senate Mr. Davis took care to put himself on re- 
cord at all times against the centralization of power by the general gov- 
ernment. On one occasion, he said: 'T hold this whole system of 
internal improvements by the Federal Government is an assumption 
of power not conferred by the Constitution, but in this case I approve 
this appropriation for the repair of this dam in the Ohio River for the 
sole reason the Government has constructed it, but I, while voting for 
this bill, do not surrender my idea of the literal translation of the Con- 
stitution." The power to prescribe rules for commerce among the 
states was surrendered to the Government and thereby the states were 



10 CtJtee Stories In iSDnt 

deprived of the power to impose restrictions or levy duty upon the com- 
merce of each other. To regulate is to make rules not to provide means. 
On April 20, 1848, Mr. Hall of New Hampshire, hurled a firebrand into 
the Senate. The bill was in relation to riots and unlawful assemblies 
in the District of Columbia. The avowed purpose of this bill was to 
punish an assemblage of armed citizens of the District who had made 
an attack upon an Abolitionist paper, The National Era, published in 
Washington, which had been making attacks on the citizens and South- 
ern members of Congress. This bill was curmingly drawn. It said 
not a word about an attempt which had stirred the capitol but a few 
daysbefore, when the Schooner Pearl, manned by a band of non-resident 
men, attempted stealing seventy-odd negroes belonging under the Con- 
stitution to citizens of the District. "Your bill," said Mr. Davis, 
"speaks loudly for one class of property, that in a newspaper, but it is 
dumb as a mute upon that to be accorded to another kind of property 
guaranteed by the Constitution. The time has come," he said, "for 
Congress to interpose the legislation necessary to punish the men who 
come within our jurisdiction, acting in fact in morals as incendiaries, 
coming right here within the limits of the jurisdiction of -Congress to 
steal property recognized by the Constitution. Is this district to be 
made the field of abolition struggle? Is this Senate chamber to be made 
the hot bed of sedition and treason? Why is it that these fanatics will 
introduce these insults to the South?" Turning to Hall, he said: "Sir, 
if civil discord is to be thrown from this chamber upon the land, if the 
fire is to be kindled herewith which is to burn the temple of our Union, 
if it is to be made the center from which civil war is to radiate, let the 
conflict begin. I am ready for one to meet any incendiary who, dead 
to every feeling of patriotism, attempts to introduce it." They were 
strong words from Mr. Davis for he was always inclined to discounte- 
nance more than to urge disunion as a remedy for the dissensions within 
the Union. He loved the Union. He loved the Constitution. He 
stood for the law and obedience to the law. He had no sympathy nor 
patience with the fanatical disruptors of the Union of the North whom 
he knew would sooner or later destroy the law and the guarantees of 
the Constitution. Later on came up the bill to admit Oregon. Here, 
again, Mr. Davis showed himself a master of statesmanship. This 
was one of his greatest speeches, made July 12, 1847, in the 30th Con- 
gress. "Congress," he said, "had no power to change the conditions 
or to strip the master of his property, entering a territory with his prop- 
erty. The South does not ask for the introduction of slavery into Or- 
egon, but it does demand protection for its property. On the acquisi- 
tion of territory the condition of slavery is not changed. The Govern- 
ment acquired no new power over it, but stood merely in the position 
of an agent for its protection. Until a territory becomes a state the 
law must remain inviolable until abrogated by the state enactments." 



C[)e ^tate$man 17 



Further on in this same speech, Mr. Davis said: "The slave must be 
made fit for freedom by education and disciphne and thus made unfit 
for slavery." He showed that all disorder that existed in the South 
was not of domestic origin, but came from New England and Great 
Britain and imposed upon the South the strongest obligation to rise in 
self-defense. He spoke of the fraternal feeling which induced the South 
to make common cause of war with the North against England. The 
South had no cause of complaint; it was flourishing by its trade with 
Great Britain. But the South's great love for our common country 
and the fraternal feeling for the people of the North and principle made 
us take up arms against Great Britain, and in return for this the North 
paid us in treachery, deceit, and a demand that we change our domestic 
institutions to gratify the selfishness of the fanatics. "The South," said 
Mr. Davis, "does not ask any special privileges, but we do demand 
there shall be no interference with our legal rights given us by the Con- 
stitution. You, of the North, resent such interference; why should 
you ask us of the South to tolerate the open violation of the Constitu- 
tion, you inject or try to do so into every bill you present to the Senate? 
You denounce our institutions and our people. Are we, sirs, not as 
good and loyal citizens as you are? Have riots, conflagrations, and 
destruction of private property been more frequent in the South than in 
the non-slave holding states? If slavery be a sin, you are guilty, for by 
you came its introduction. As owners of the commercial marine you im- 
ported these slaves, you sold them in the South, and you are parties 
to the contract that made them legal property. If you repent of this, 
show your repentance by keeping the moral obligations you made when 
you sold to the South her slaves. You forget in your fanaticism that 
the Government is the agent of the states; it is simply the creature of 
the states from which it derives all its power. Let those who possess 
opportunity to judge the men who have grown up in the presence of 
slavery as it exists in the United States and say if they are not useful, 
noble citizens. Compare the slaves of the South with the free blacks 
of the North and tell me which is the most contented and happy? One 
suffers all the pain of physical want; they fill penitentiaries and pauper 
institutes. View the slave of the South. He is moral, honest and 
well cared for," 

This speech was one of the many powerful defenses he made on the 
floor of the Senate for his beloved South and her people. 

In the spring of 1848, Gen. Lopez called one evening to see Senator 
Davis at his Washington home and invited Mr. Davis to take charge 
and command of an expedition to free Cuba, liberate her from the 
Spanish bonds that held her. There was to be S100,000 given Mr. 
Davis when he took charge of the affair and S100,000 and a coffee 
plantation when the Island should be free. In telling this to friends, 
Mr. Davis said: 



18 Cfjree Stories 3n Dne 

"If it had been consistent vvdth my idea of duty I would have accepted. 
This same offer was made to General, then Major, Robert E. Lee. 
but he, too, did not think it consistent to accept after he had advised 
with Mr. Davis. Mr. Davis served in the Senate in the 31st Congress, 
1849-50. It was in this Congress that Mr. Clay presented his famous 
compromise resolution. This was a congress of giants Among this 
great aggregation were men whose names will never fade from the 
pages of American history. Davis, Calhomi, Clay, Badger, N. C; Butler, 
S. C; Hunter, of Virginia, from the South. Webster, Seward, Hamlin, 
of the North; Benton, Corwin, Douglass, of the West. In this Congress 
came the first blow struck at the Union. The anti-slavery movement 
spread so rapidly that it became aggressive and arrogant. During 
the debate on this resolution of Mr. Clay, Mr. Seward, of New York, 
attempted to introduce a resolution, that the Rev. Father Mathew, a 
great temperance orator of that day, should be invited to a seat within 
the bar of the Senate Mr. Clemens objected to the reverend gentleman 
being invited inside of the Senate bar, because he had denounced 
the South as little better than a band of pirates. To this objection 
Mr. Seward spoke and urged his resolution be adopted. In reply Mr. 
Davis tore off Mr. Seward's mask of insincerity and laid bare before 
the world his hypocrisy and the cant of the North. "The Union, with- 
out the constitution, we hold to be a curse; with the constitution we 
hold it a blessing and will never abandon it." In this speech he warned 
and begged the fanatics of the North to abandon their work of destroying 
the Union. The people of the South, he said, know their rights. This 
generation all maintain the character of their fathers. They will sustain 
the institutions they inherited if necessary by war. They will march 
up to meet the issue face to face. Do not, I plead, make this 
necessary. In this session of the 31st Congress the real agitation of 
the abolition party began. Vermont, Massachusetts, New Hampshire 
and Pennsyvania all sent petitions to Congress on the question of 
slavery. A reference to the "Congressional Record" will show that Mr. 
Davis was always in his seat, always on the alert to protect the South 
from the slanders and hate of the fanatics who were bent on destroy- 
ing the Union, to build it up again upon a basis of unconstitutional 
principles and foundation of negro equality which they succeeded 
in doing after years of agitation, slander and misrepresentation of 
the South 

In this year, 1849, there was a great political campaign in state 
politics of Mississippi. Mr. Davis had just been elected a Senator 
for six years. His high sense of honor prevented him from taking 
part in this campaign. The success of the Democratic party would 
be endangered by the nomination of Gen. Quitman who held to the 
Calhoun doctrine of nulification. The party turned to Mr. Davis, 



Cl)e Statesman 19 



his name was announced for Governor and he at once resigned his 
seat in the U. S. Senate to enter the State campaign. Mr. Davis 
had just six weeks in which to work. He was broken in health and 
could not bear the fatigue of campaigning. He was defeated and now 
determined to retire from public life and enter again upon the private 
life of a planter. He had just begun to feel again the comfort of home 
life at Briarfield when Mr. Franklin Pierce (1852) was elected Presi- 
dent. He wrote, urging Mr. Davis to enter his cabinet, pleading with 
him to come to Washington if only for the inauguration. When Mr. 
Davis arrived in Washington the 4th of March, 1853, Mr. Pierce 
brought all the pressure he could to bear upon Mr. Davis to induce 
him to take the portfolio of the War Department. Mr. Davis yielded. 
December 7, 1853, as Secretary of War, he submitted his first report. 
Like all his public documents it was marked by a dignity of style which 
invested dead facts with life, but added force and argument to his work. 
While in President Pierce's cabinet Mr. Davis was the conspicuous 
figure, making such vast improvements in the work of that department 
that even those opposed to Mr. Pierce's adminstration were compelled 
to give praise to the Secretary of War. Take, today, the opinion of 
every old officer of the United States Army, and he will without hes- 
itation tell you that Jefferson Davis was the best as he was the greatest 
Secretary of War who ever held that portfolio. 

He established new army posts west of the Mississippi River for 
the protection of emigration. He put a strong post at El Paso. He 
made the raids of the terrible Comanche Indians across the border 
more hazardous for them and thereby diminished their depredations. 
He took up and corrected and perfected the recruiting service. His 
influence for good diminished the desertions from the army. He rec- 
ommended an increase of pay for the private soldier and promotion 
for the non-commissioned officers to that of commissioned officers. 
His great sense of equity and justice dictated this reform. He insisted 
that only intelligent men of character should be enlisted, thus fixing 
a higher standard in the ranks of the army. He urged the defense 
of our coasts, and he it was that took practical steps to have the most 
practicable and economical route for a railroad from the Mississippi 
River to the Pacific Ocean, and to him alone is this first inception 
of a railroad due. 

It was Jefferson Davis as Secretary of War who declared the Gov- 
ernment should undertake nothing private enterprise could accom- 
plish. He gave his views for this opinion and they have never been con- 
troverted. He urged the establishment of an armory on Western 
waters and the removal of one of the armories from the East to the West. 
Let me say here this one act alone disposes of that base, malicious 
slander that he, when in office, strengthened the South in its military 



20 Cfjree ^torie$ 3Jn £>ne 

work at the expense of the North. Under the supervision of the War 
Department, Secretary of War, Davis energetically prosecuted the ex- 
tension of the capital. Under his supervision the grand waterway for 
supplying Washington City with drinking water was built. A splendid 
stone aqueduct stands but a few miles from Washington, a monument 
to his earnest labor. The engineer, Capt. C. M. Meigs, who had charge 
of the great work under Mr. Davis, had the impudence in his bigotry 
and zeal to have Mr. Davis's name erased from the tablet on the 
bridge, but by the efforts of Mrs. Cornelia Brach Stone, President 
general of the U. D. C, the name of Mr. Davis has been restored to 
Cabin John Bridge. 

Mr. Davis's second report as Secretary of War is an interesting 
document. I commend it to all military students. Report of Secretary 
of War, second session, thirty-third Congress. Executive document. 
No. 1, 1854. The city of Dubuque today is indebted to Mr. Davis 
for her grand ice harbor the best on the river from St. Paul's to New 
Orleans. In the third report of Mr. Davis as Secretary of War we 
find many more improvements made by him. He stopped the making 
of smoothbore arms and had improved rifles — breechloading and other 
patterns made. Those which were valueless to the soldier as a defense, 
were cast aside and better things substituted. In his fourth report all 
the Indian troubles on the plains had ended or nearly so. Mr. Davis 
was a civil-service reformer. He knew no politics when he was making 
appointments for office. Fitness alone not politics was his rule. Whig 
nor Democrat could not hold office if he could not fill the position 
up to the standard set by Mr. Davis. He had the system of tactics 
revised and sent Capt. Hardee to France to study the best modes. 
He organized and perfected the army signal corps. On one occasion a 
man who knew nothing about large guns, their expansion and contract- 
ion under heat, went to Mr. Davis to endorse his invention. After 
the Secretary of War had talked to the inventor and found out his 
total ignorance he refused to endorse the invention. The inventor 
took his gun to Congress, asked and got an appropriation to have 
his gun made and tested. The inventor made requisition on the War 
Department for assistance which was accorded him. When the gun 
was finished he applied for a gunner to fire it, but to this Mr. Davis 
said, "Sir, I cannot give you a man's life and you must find some one 
else to fire your gun. I will not order an officer of the U. S Army to 
do it." As the inventor did not care to risk his own life the gun was 
never fired. 

John W. Forney, of Philadelphia, said of Mr. Davis in his paper: 
"Jefferson Davis was blessed with many accomplishments. He was 
statesman and alike a soldier. He was as conversant with the smallest 



Cfje statesman 2X 



minutiae of his department. He devoted himself to the decoration of 
the Capitol. He stood by Capt. C. M. Meigs in all his work, Jefferson 
Davis was the greatest Secretary of War we ever had and the best 
friend to worthy young men I ever knew." On March 4, 1857, 
Mr. Davis resigned his office as Secretary of War. The parting between 
President Pierce and his Secretary of War was tender and sincere. 
Mr. Buchanan had been elected to succeed Mr. Pierce as president. 
Now came those horrible days of 1850 to 1861. Mr. Davis was again 
in the United States Senate. John Brown, that prince of scoundrels 
and murderers, a fanatic of fanitics, had gathered together a band 
of lawless characters and invaded the State of Virginia. On the night 
of October 16, 1859, this band of cut throats virtually began the war of 
1861-'65, bringing the results that Mr. Davis time and time again 
spoke of and deprecated. John Bro^vn's first victim was an inoffensive 
colored man named Stephens who refused to join Brown and his band 
of murderers. In the excited condition of the public mind in the South 
this raid of Brown's into the State of Virginia made the condition 
acute. Volmiteers rushed to the scene. Brown and part of his party 
were captured, tried and hung for their treason and murder. Fowler, 
in his work, "Sectional Controversy," says in cities and towns in 
the North on the day John Brown was hung at Charlestown, Va., 
bells were tolled and prayers offered in the churches. He was honored 
as a saint and martyr, when in truth he was but a cowardly murderer 
of women and children. Men of his own party associates have so 
denounced him. Be what he may he was a violator of the laws of 
the State of Virginia, and that grand old Commonwealth hung him as 
she would any other criminal. It was proven that both members of 
the Senate and House of Congress had contributed money to further 
Brown's scheme to add fuel to the flame. Hinton Helper, of North 
Carolina, wrote that infamous book, "The Impending Crisis." The 
book intensified the feeling between the North and the South. The 
proposition of his book was to abolish slavery in the South by first 
inciting a revolution among that class called "poor whites." This 
book also urged that there should be no fellowship in religion, no charity 
for slave-owners. Murder and rapine was the religion of this fanatic. 
Congress opened December 7, 1859. Incredible as it may seem this 
Helper book was purchased by Northern Senators and the fanatics of 
the North and sent out as campaign matter. It was scattered over the 
South by the secret agents of the abolitionist societies of the North. 
Northern members of the Senate openly ignored the decisions of the 
Supreme Court and declared their intention to violate the rights of 
property within the territories guaranteed by the Constitution. The 
abolitionist took cause with Stephen A. Douglass. The whole country 
was in uproar. Conservative Northern Democrats and Southern Dem- 



22 C[)ree Stories 3n SDm 

ocrats stood together to stem this tide that they saw must dash the 
ship of Union to pieces upon the rocks of fanaticism. About this moment 
when hnes were drawn tight such sentiments were heard from leaders 
all over the North, that the most hopeful men of that day felt the hour 
had come and the death knell of the Union struck. 

Now we will take up the crisis that culminated in the war of 
1861-'65 and as introductory want to call attention to some facts 
that led up to the war. 

There is a tendency, a disposition by some in the South to forget 
the past, to treat the history of the past as a closed book, and teach 
our children to let the book forever remain closed. This would be 
gladly done by every man in the South who honestly wore the gray, 
if it did not present us to the world as accepting the explanations of 
the fanatics of the North as the true causes of the war, and the un- 
friendliness of the sections against our people and our domestic laws 
and institutions. 

We will designate the people of the two sections. North and South; 
one we will call Puritans, the other Cavaliers. Hume, the English his- 
torian, and McCauley, with other European writers, say: "The 
Puritans of England, up to the date of the Stuarts, looked upon all 
who did not agree with them as Amalekites, idolaters, whom they, 
the Puritans, as God's only chosen people, were ordained and commis- 
sioned to punish and bring into the Puritan fold," and it was this stock, 
says C. B. Taylor, in his "History of the United States," came over 
in the "Mayflower" (their ark) and brought with them their commis- 
sions to burn witches, burn the tongues of Quakers and do other things 
in God's holy name, like dictating morals and maimers to the people 
of the South. 

The Southerners were immigrants from England, Scotland, France 
and all Europe, without special commissions from the Lord to teach 
their fellowman how to worship. The people who settled in the South, 
in religion were Protestants, Catholics, Jews, who tolerated each 
other as men and brothers. They had divorced church and state, 
giving each man the right to worship God as he believed. 

We admit for argument's sake that the Puritan or New Englander 
was God's chosen people and New England his inheritance. When we 
come to read the history of these people at this day we cannot but 
view with horror the atrocities perpetrated upon the Narragansett 
Indians in 1675, and question if God's own people would commit such 
acts. When we read in Irving's "History of New York," how the cute 
men of New England counterfeited the local currency of the Dutch, 
cheating them out of their gold, herrings and cheese, makes us again 



Cf)e ^tate^man 23 



question if these early Puritan pilgrims were God's chosen people. 
Now, for a few notes from early history to show the attitude of the 
two sections, which will enable the student to hunt up the full details. 
Of the incident of the tea tax which brought on the struggle between 
the English crown and the colonies, Senator Geo. F. Hoar says: "The 
Southern colonies had not the slightest particle of personal interest." 
See Montgomery's U. S. History. 

Shortly after the Declaration of Independence there was a formal 
move made to form a compact of states. When the draft of a constitu- 
tion was under discussion, Rutledge, of South Carolina, objected to its 
provisions. Why? Because he doubted the good faith of those chosen 
people of God who even this early were trying to make the Southern 
colonies subject to the whims and dictation of the Eastern colonies. 
Some incidents in the time when Washington was given command of 
the Colonial army: In November, 1775, after Washington had been 
some months in command of the New England troops at Boston, he 
wrote: "Such a mercenary spirit pervades the whole that I should 
not be surprised at any disaster that may happen. * * * Could I have 
foreseen what I have experienced and am likely to experience, no con- 
sideration upon earth would have induced me to accept this command." 

"In December, 1775, John Adams, a member of the Marine Com- 
mittee in the Continental Congress, opposed the appointment of John 
Paul Jones to a captaincy in the navy, whose election Joseph Hewes 
was advocating. Afterwards Hewes wrote: "The attitude of Mr. Ad- 
ams was in keeping with the always imperious and often arrogant tone 
of the Masachusetts people at that time." 

"In November, 1776, the British brigantine "Active," loaded with 
clothing for Gen. Burgoyne's army, was captured off the coast of Cape 
Breton by the "Alfred," commanded by Capt. John Paul Jones. He 
appointed "Lieutenant Spooner" to take command of the prize, to 
proceed with all haste to Edenton, North Carolina, and deliver her to 
"Robert Smith, Esquire," who was the partner of Joseph Hewes, 
through whose influence, being a member of the Marine Committee 
in the Continental Congress, Jones had been appointed Senior First 
Lieutenant in the navy. But "Lieutenant Spooner" carried the prize 

to Dartmouth, Massachusetts, and delivered it to his brother who was 
prize agent." 

"When John Paul Jones, commanding the "Ranger," was in St 
George's Channel planning a descent on the Irish coast by night in order 
to surprise and capture the "Drake," a twenty-gun British ship, his New 
England officers would not consent to the movement. Jones says in his 
"Narrative": "This project, however, greatly alarmed my lieutenants; 



24 Cftree ^torieg In SDne 

they were poor, they said, and their object was gain, not honor; they 
accordingly excited disobedience among the ship's company, by per- 
suading them that they had a right to determine whether the measures 
adopted by me were well concerted or not." 

"In 1787 the Congress of the Confederation, eight states represented, 
sold to a number of Northern gentlemen (including Dr. Manasseh 
Cutler, Gen. Rufus Putnam, Gen. S. H. Parsons and Col. William 
Duer) 5,000,000 acres of land in Ohio, and accepted for payment 
S3, 500,000 of "Continental money," which was then worth one-eighth 
of its face value. In other words, these gentlemen purchased a tract 
of land as large as the State of New Jersey at less than nine cents per 
acre, thus laying the foundations for the "expansion" of New England 
in the lands which Virginia had ceded for the common benefit of all 
the States." 

"During the war of 1812 John Lowell published in Boston a paper 
which he called "The Rofed to Ruin," in which (as quoted by Carey 
in his "Olive Branch") he thus spoke of the tradmg class of the people: 
"They engage in lawless speculations, sneer at restraints of conscience, 
laugh at perjury, mock at legal restraints, and acquire an ill-gotten 
wealth at the expense of public morals," &c., thus manifesting a dis- 
position which, in the estimation of some people, has not entirely 
disappeared yet, as we may infer from this remark of Senator Bradley, 
of Kentucky, in a speech he delivered in the Senate on the 4th of May, 
1909: "Mr. President," he said, "one more word and I am through. 
Give to Kentucky fair protection of her interests" — the right, he meant, 
to "prosper" at the expense of other States — "and I guarantee you it 
will be but a short time until Kentucky is as certainly a Republican 
State as the great State of Massachusetts." 

All these quotations from early history is to give an idea of what 
the people of the South had to deal with in 1861-'65, and their commer- 
cialism always with them above principle; now a few more quotations: 

New England in the Old Union. 

"While the people of New England were fretting about the non- 
intercourse acts of Jefferson's Administration, "Algernon Sidney" 
(probably J. Q. Adams) addressed "An Appeal" to them (see State 
Papers, 2nd Sess., 10th Cong.) in which this question appears: "Re- 
cur to the period between peace and the present Government. Did 
not the commercial States enrich themselves at the expense of the 
agricultural?" And 

"Referring to this same period and particularly to the disappear- 
ance of the wealthy men of Colonial times, Hildreth says in his "His- 



Cf)e ^tatc0man 25 



tory of the United States:" "In their place a new moneyed class has 
sprung up, especially in the Eastern States, men who had grown rich 
in the course of the war as sutlers, by privateering, by speculations in 
the fluctuating paper money, and by other operations not always of 
the most honorable kind." Vol. III., p. 465. 

"In 1790, while Congress was planning a new tariff bill, Massachu- 
setts sent a petition asking "a, remission of duties on all the dutiable ar- 
ticles used in the fisheries," whether re-exported or not — salt, rum, tea, 
sugar, molasses, iron, coarse woolens, lines and hooks, sailcloth, cord- 
age and tonnage, "and also premiums and bounties." And this peti- 
tion asked for all these special favors for a people to whom John Jay 
thus referred to in the "Federahst" about two years before this: "With 
France and with Britain we are rivals in the fisheries, and can supply 
their markets cheaper than they can themselves, notwithstanding any 
efforts to prevent it by bounties on their own or duties on foreign fish." 

Now we will take up facts closer to 1861-'65. 

"As a result of sectional privileges and incidental favors enjoyed 
by the North from the beginning of the Union, Kettell calculates that 
the annual flow of money from the South to the North at the time he 
wrote (1860) amounted to $231,500,000, and the hope that the South 
could ever free herself from her vassalage had utterly vanished, since 
at that time the Senate of the United States was composed of thirty 
Southern and thirty-six Northern members, and some of the territories 
were about ready to come in and strengthen the North. 

"To all this evidence it is hardly necessary to add that no Northerner 
has ever charged that any Southern statesman ever asked for the 
passage of a law to enable any Southern man, corporation or State to 
"prosper" at the expense of the Northern states. Nor can there be any 
doubt of the truth of the statement in "The Origin of the Late War," 
a work written by George Lunt, a Massachusetts lawyer. He says: 
"Of four several compromises between the two sections since the Rev- 
olutionary War, each has been kept by the South and violated by the 
North." 

This is the evidence given by a Northern man who had no interest 
in the South. 

The New Englander and Slavery. 

1. In 1638 — eighteen years after that noted Jamestown incident — 
the Salem slave-ship, the "Desire," brought into Massachusetts a 
number of negroes, and found ready sale for them. This, says Moore 
("Notes," &c.) "was not a private individual speculation; it was the 
enterprise of the authorities of the Colony." But in one volume of the 



20 CJ)tee Stories! 3in SDm 

"American History Stories," published by the Educational Publish- 
ing Company, of Boston, it is said that the Georgians introduced 
slavery into their Colony because they "were not a God-fearing people 
as were the Puritans and Quakers." And this book has found its way 
into Southern schools! 

2. In 1641 Massachusetts adopted her "body of liberties" as a writ- 
ten Constitution of Government, in which this provision occurs: 

"There shall never be any bond slavery, villanage or captivity 
amongst us, unless it be lawful captives taken in just wars and such 
strangers as willingly sell themselves or are sold to us" — many Indians 
"willingly" accepting slavery in preference to death when permitted 
to choose. 

3. In 1643 Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, Connecticut and New 
Haven formed a Confederation, mutually agreeing, among other stip- 
ulations, to surrender fugitive slaves. 

4. In 1676 the New Englanders exterminated the Indian tribe which 
under Massasoit had befriended them for half a century, killing six 
hundred men and one thousand women and children in one battle and 
selling the few survivors as slaves, among these being the nine-year-old 
grandson of Massasoit. He was shipped to Bermuda; and this was 
done after Rev. Samuel Arnold, of Marshfield, and Rev. John Cotton, 
of Plymouth, had advised that he be "butchered." 

5 In 1768, according to a British report (See Kettell) 6,700 negroes 
were shipped by Northern slavers from the west coast of Africa; and, if 
we adopt the Jamaica price, these traders carried home more than one 
million of dollars. 

6. In October, 1905, according to the "New York Evening Post," an 
insurance policy was shown to a gentleman in that city which was is 
sued to a New England Company, "about 1860," on a cargo of slaves. 

7. The slave trade was one of the most gainful employments of New 
England ships up to 1861. In that year the "Nightingale," commanded 
by Francis Bowen, of Boston, was captured on the African coast, hav- 
ing on board 961 negroes, and was "expecting more," and while she was 
being captured nine other slaves escaped. Naval War Records, Vol I. 

Slavery being unprofitable in Massachusetts it was a common prac- 
tice to give away negro children "like puppy dogs." 

I do not suppose this can be denied by any fanatic for its history. 

Adopting the rate of increase of the colored population of this country 
from 1880 to 1890 as the normal rate, per decade, I find that after the 
courts of Massachusetts began to decide that the children of slaves 



Cfje Statesman 27 



were free at their birth, the colored population of that state, between 
1800 and 1830, fell 2,386 below what it should have been What be- 
came of these mifortunate beings we may never know; but possibly the 
legislature of North Carolina had them in mind when,in 1786, it enacted 
that any person who brought a slave into this State from a State 
which had made provision for the liberation of its slaves, "should enter 
into a bond with sufficient surety in the sum of fifty pounds" for the 
removal of the slave back to the state he brought him, and that 
if he failed to comply with the requirement of the bond he should be 
liable to a fine of one hundred dollars. 

In 1788 Massachusetts adopted a regulation that negroes from other 
States, bond or free, could not settle in her borders unless they carried 
with them certificates of citizenship, and that a violator of the law 
should be fiogged if he refused to leave the state after being warned by 
a justice of the peace. 

One of the first laws adopted by the State of Ohio, which had been 
settled chiefly by New Englanders, was that no colored person from 
another State should migrate to Ohio, and that if any white man carried 
one to that State he should give a $500 bond that the black man should 
not "come upon the town" to be supported. 

William Elsey Connelley, who was a strong friend of John Brown, 
declares in "An Appeal to the Record" that the famous "Emigrant Aid 
Company" which made war on Southerners in Kansas, was organized 
"for seculative purposes;" and Rev. Dr. Edward Everett Hale, in his 
"Kansas and Nebraska," which was published in 1854, represents the 
movement to exclude Southerners from those territories partly, if not 
wholly, intended to convert them into "wealthy colonies" for the bene- 
fit of the "factories" of Massachusetts. 

While Garrison's little band were sending their abolition petitions 
over the country and into the halls of Congress, Franklin Pierce, a Rep- 
resentative in Congress from New Hampshire, said in a speech delivered 
during the session which commenced in December, 1837: "I am un- 
willing that any imputation shall rest upon the North in consequence 
of the misguided and fanatical zeal of a few — comparatively very few— 
who, however honest may have been their purposes, have, I believe, done 
incalculable mischief and whose movements, I know, receive no more 
sanction at the North than they do at the South"; and as late as Jan- 
uary, 1850, Samuel S. Phelps, a Vermont Senator, referring in a speech 
to what he considered unreasonable complaints on the part of South- 
erners, said: "As to what has been offensively said at the North, this 
is a land of free speech ; and what is to be done with people who be- 
lieve themselves charged with a mission, not only to amend the Con- 
stitution framed by the wisdom of our fathers, but also to assist the 



28 Ci)tee Stories! In fiDne 

Almighty in the correction of sundry mistakes which they have dis- 
covered in His works?" 

In the inau'gm-al address of Uobert J. Walker, a Pennsylv&nian and 
an emlancipationist, who had been appointed by President Buchanan 
Governor of Kansas, he exposed the hypocrisy of the "free-soilers" by 
declaring that "in their so-called Cotistitution, formed at Topeka, they 
deemed, that entire race (negroes) so inferior knd degraded as to exclude 
them all forever from Kansas, whether they be bond or free" — the pro- 
vision having been adopted by more than four-fifths of the votes. 

In the Constitution of Indiana, which was adopted in 1851, after the 
provision that "no negro or mulatto shall have the right of suffrage," 
it is declared that "no negro or mulatto shall come into or settle in the 
state." And Indiana, be it remembered, was settled mainly by New 
Englanders. 

Up to the time of the adoption of the 14th amendment no colored 
person could vote in any Northern state east of the Hudson River, nor 
in Connecticut ; and in the few other states where he was not absolutely 
disfranchised, the right to vote was practically nullified by the require- 
ment of qualifications possessed by few colored persons. In Massachu- 
setts, for example, the voter had to be able to read, write, and had to 
own a free-hold estate "of the annual income of three pounds." 

In volume VII, for example, of John Clark Ridpath's pretentious 
"History of the World," referring to this "moral awakening," he says: 
"The conscience of the nation" — the North being the "nation" — "was 
roused, and the belief began to prevail that slavery was wrong per se 
and ought to be destroyed," the presumption being that some competent 
power had authorized the "nation" to destroy it. But the books which 
Mr. Ridpath had studied were not written for the purpose of dealing 
fairly with the South, as the reader will perceive if he will examine the 
pages of Belford's "History of the United States," Benton's "Thirty 
Years' View" and Lippincott's "Gazetteer" (1857). In these he will 
discover that, in a few years after the admission of Missouri, attacks on 
abolitionists in the North commenced, which may be summed up 
briefly as follows: 

In 1834 an angry mob broke up the school of Prudence Crandall, 
in Canterbury, Connecticut, because she admitted negro children as 
pupils, and destroyed valuable property. She was imprisoned in the 
town jail. 

Just thousands of these inconsistencies can be shown, but it is need- 
less. We will now take up How the North Respects Compacts: 

In the Convention of 1787, there was a great difference of opinion as 
to the powers of the Republic to be formed. The Government was to be 



C!)e Statesman 29 



formed of the thirteen colonies. Then all separate distinct govern- 
ments, and these distinct colonial organizations were to be the powers 
to act upon the declaration of independence, which would organize 
them into free and independent states, each with power to do all acts 
and whatever else was necessary that Independent and free states 
should do. Each colony had been authorized to ratify the Declaration 
of Independence, all acting separately. 

After the war between Great Britain and the colonies, the treaty of 
peace with Great Britain in 1782 recognized, the separate independence 
f^nd sovereignty of these colonies as states. As had been done in treaties 
previously made with France, the Netherlands and Sweeden, the 
states assembled through their deputies in Philadelphia to form a 
compact or a union more perfect and stronger than the Articles of Con- 
federation already agreed upon. But soon the delegates found them- 
selves contending for policies so far divergent that it looked for a time 
there would be no union of states. But the patriotism of the men 
sent by the different colonies to the convention prevailed, which re- 
sulted in the Constitution which was adopted by the deputies from 
each state. Yet each state voted as a unit. A conflict of political ideas 
has existed since the foundation of this nation, difference of interpre- 
tation of the Constitution has and will always exist. Parties soon 
sprung into existence, in creed and form. Adams and Hamilton headed 
one party and Thomas Jefferson the other, and these parties continued 
in their antagonism of views until 1861, neither party attempting 
to hide or disguise its construction of the Constitution. Slavery ex- 
isted in all the colonies at the writing and promulgating of the 
Declaration of Independence, and for economic and other reasons, the 
North got rid of slavery, not by emancipation but by selling their 
slaves to the South, and the people of the North did not conclude that 
slavery was immoral and wroiig ulitil the industrial independence 
of the South threatened the political situation of the North. 
Then the people or leaders in the North determined to destroy the sys- 
tem of slavery, and no moral reason incited them to this action; it was 
purely political and commercial. 

Now begun attacks in the pulpits of the North, in the press of the 
North, in Congress by Northern members, on the South, and not one 
word was uttered against the moral of the North selling her slave prop- 
erty to the South. In the most offensive language the Northern mem- 
bers of Congi'ess would hold up the South and her institutions to the 
world, urging at all times against the South the most drastic legisla- 
tion, to empower the central government to interfere with the domestic 
laws of the Southern states, until the election of 1860 brought matters 
to a crisis. And with therse brief facts let us look at some of the in- 
cidents that brought on the war of 1861-'65. 



30 C[)ree Stories 3Jn £Dne 

_0n April 1, 1783, while the Congress of the Confederation was plan- 
ning at the urgent request of Northerners, to have the Articles of Con- 
federation amended so as to substitute population for land as a basis 
of taxation in each State, and Southerners were objecting to New 
England's demand that all slaves should be included in a State's "Fed- 
eral population," Mr. Gorham, of Massachusetts, gave as "a cogent 
reason for hastening that business, that the Eastern states, at the 
invitation of Massachusetts, were, with New York, about to form a 
Convention for regulating matters of common concern" — to violate 
the second clause of the 6th of "The Articles of Confederation." 

This threat induced the Southerners, who were anxious to perpetu- 
ate the Union, to consent to include three-fifths of the slaves in the 
Federal population. But when the Coiivention of 1787 was endeavor- 
ing to agree upon a just basis on which "representatives and direct 
taxes" should be apportioned among the states, New England strongly- 
insisted that no slaves be included in the Federal population. That 
is to say: It was just to apportion the burdens of the members of the 
Confederation according to their wealth-producing power, but it was 
unjust to permit the Southern States to be represented in the law- 
making body of the Union in proportion to their wealth-producing 
power. Aiid this old spirit of sectional injustice appears among the 
demands of the Hartford Convention. 

In 1787 the famous Ordinance for the government of the North- 
west Territory was adopted by eight states, and the 5,000,000 acres 
of land in Ohio were sold by the same states, although the pledge to 
the land states in 1780 declared that the lands should be granted or 
settled "under such regulations as shall hereafter be agreed on by the 
United States in Congress assembled, or nine or more of them." 

When Georgia and North Carolina ceded the lands which became 
Tennessee, Alabama and Mississippi, it was expressly agreed between 
them and "the United States," that "no regulations made or to be 
made shall tend to emancipate slaves" in the ceded territory. 

When Virginia, North Carolina and Georgia made cessions of their 
"waste lands" one of the conditions agreed to by all parties was that 
these lands should be "considered as a common fund for the use and 
benefit" of all the states, * * * "according to their usual respect- 
ive proportions in the general charge and expenditure and shall faith- 
fully and dona fide disposed of for that purpose, and for no other use 
or purpose whatsoever." But the reports of the General Land Office 
show that this condition has been shamefully disregarded. 

When the lands west of the Mississippi were purchased, and the 
taxing system of the Federal government compelled the Southern 



Cl)e statesman 31 



people to contribute most of the purchase money, it cannot be claimed 
that it was intended or that it would be just to deny that these lands 
should be "considered as a common fund for the use and benefit" of 
all the states. But, as Senator Plumb, of Kansas, said in the United 
States Senate on September 25, 1888, these lands have been so disposed 
of as to "multiply, develop and strengthen the North." 

The Constitution declares that "if a person charged in any state 
with treason, felony or other crime" flees to another state, the latter 
shall, on demand of the Governor of the injured state, surrender him; 
but when two of the criminals who served under John Brown when he 
invaded Virginia, fled, one to Ohio and the other to Iowa, the Govern- 
ors of those states refused to comply with the demand of the Governor 
of Virginia for their surrender. 

When the "more perfect Union" was formed, each state retained 
what Mr. Jefferson called "interior government," and it is beyond 
question that the new Constitution would have been unanimously 
rejected it if had been expected that the Federal government would 
ever assume to interfere in matters purely local, but "the North" 
forced the 14th amendment into the Constitution by destroying some 
of the states and erecting in them governments which did not repre- 
sent the hereditary citizens; and this amendment subjects the states to 
the offensive supervision of judges who have for forty years been chosen 
by '"the North." 

The Constitution declares that "no new state shall be formed or 
erected within the jurisdiction of any other state;" but in 1863 thirty- 
nine of Virginia's counties were cut off by "the North" and erected 
into West Virginia. 

When Thaddeus Stephens, of Pennsylvania; Zachariah Chandler, 
of Michigan; Benjamin F. Wade, of Ohio, and other leaders of the 
Republican party were balked in their scheme to degrade and insult 
the Southern people by inserting into the Constitution their 14th 
amendment, because no Southern state would consent to its own 
degradation, and only twenty-one of the other states were willing to 
assist in the disgraceful movement, these statesmen passed their "re- 
construction measures," destroyed the Southern States, and erected 
in the borders of each what was known as a "carpet-bag government," 
in violation of the fundamental principles for which our forefathers 
contended in the Revolutionary War, in violation of well-known pro- 
visions of the Compact of Union between the states and in violation 
of their official oaths. Thousands of hereditary voters were disfran- 
chised, the "carpet-bagger" who was not a citizen was given super- 
vision of the election for members of a so-called Constitutional Con- 



32 Cfjree ^torie$ 3n Dne 

vention in each province, and a ballot was placed in the hand of every 
colored man (although no such persons could vote in Pennsylvania, 
Ohio or Michigan). Of the character of these "carpet-bag" govern- 
ments the reader may get a glimpse in the following statement made 
by Charles Nordhoff (a Prussian) who in those days was a trusted 
correspondent of the New York Herald: 

One of the contributors to Rice's "Reminiscences," &c., was George 
W. Juhan, the "Free Soil" candidate for vice-president in 1852, an 
Indiana congressman from 1860 to 1870, and an advocate of confis- 
cating all the property of "rebels." Discussing the issuance of Lincoln's 
"emancipation proclamation," he says: 

"Few subjects have been more debated and less understood th^n 
the Proclamation of Emancipation. Mr. Lincoln was himself opposed 
to the measure." 

The sole object of the invasion and subjugation of the Confederate 
States must, therefore, have been to drive them back into the Union 
and keep them as "wealthy colonies;" and the time may not be far off 
when just men will wonder what sort of a moral code it was which 
held that all generations of Southerners were bomid to labor for the 
"prosperity" of the North because their Revolutionary ancestors 
carried their states into a partnership with the Northern states. 



Historic Injustice to Southern Sentiment About Emancipation. 

On February 24, 1824, Thomas Jefferson addresssed a letter to 
Jared Sparks, a New Englander, who then edited the North American 
Review, urging his plans for emancipating the slaves and deporting 
them to Sierra Leone; and on January 25, 1832, the Virginia House of 
Delegates passed a resolution declaring it "expedient to adopt some 
legislative enactment for the abolition of slavery." 

During the session of Congress which began on the first Monday of 
December, 1829, Senator Thomas H. Benton, of Missouri, while the 
Foot resolution was being discussed, said: 'T can truly say that slavery, 
in the abstract, has but few advocates or defenders in the slave-holding 
states, and that slavery as it is, an hereditary institution, descended 
upon us from our ancestors, would have fewer advocates among us 
than it has, if those that have nothing to do with the subject would 
only let us alone. The sentiment in favor of slavery was much weaker 
before those intermeddlers began their operations than it is at present." 



Clje Statesman 33 



Northern Blindness of Facts. 

Searching among the most trustworthy records of the social and 
poHtical institutions of ancient and mediaeval nations for the causes 
which led to periods of exceptional moral degradation, I have been 
convinced by Gibbon, Milman, Hallam and others that every such 
period has followed and resulted from a repudiation of the popular 
divinities by the honored leaders of the people and the consequent 
weakenmg of the binding power of their hereditary moral code. This 
repudiation often, if not invariably, resulted from hostile conflicts 
between nations or tribes which had inherited different religious sys- 
tems and worshipped different gods, and in many cases there resulted 
an infidelity in both combatants. The struggle to introduce Christian- 
ity into the Roman Empire, with its provinces and dependencies 
worshiping all sorts of gods, from a bull up to Jupiter, furnishes many 
illustrations of this truth ; appalling pictures of depravity throughout 
the Byzantine empire, in France, in Asia Minor, and in some of the 
famous cities during three or four centuries following the decree adopt- 
ing Christianity. 

The census of 1850 shows that in Virginia, North Carolina, South 
Carolina, Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi there were 291,626 land- 
holders, of whom 91,797 owned no slaves. This census shows that, count- 
ing five white persons to a family, 50 per cent, of the families in these 
six Southern States owned no farms, and that the farmless families 
in Ohio were 63 per cent, of the total. Possibly the Tribune and Mr. 
Julian, if they had desired to know the truth, may have discovered 
that thousands of lawyers, doctors, teachers, merchants, preachers, 
railroad and steamboat employees, and persons engaged in other busi- 
ness occupations had no use for farms or slaves. 

In the summer of 1863, President Lincoln and his followers in Con- 
gress cut off thirty-nine Virginia counties and admitted them into 
partnership with the other states as West Virginia. This was in viola- 
tion of an expressed provision of that Constitution which all these 
statesmen had solemnly sworn to support ; and if anything like this had 
been done in private life, the perpetrators would have been rewarded 
by a sojourn in some penitentiary. 

Thus we have it acknowledged by the highest authority that the 
Republican party entered upon that career which seems to challenge 
formidable opposition in the Northern States, under the leadership 
of a man who rejected the only claim of our Revolutionary sires which 
the civilized world has admitted to have been a valid excuse for over- 
throwing British rule in the thirteen states and thus re-established 
so far as he could, the mediaeval rule for the guidance of strong com- 



34 CJ)ree ^tone$ In ;2Dne 

munities when dealing with weak ones; who repudiated the binding 
force of an official oath and thus destroyed the sanctity of a solemn 
appeal to the Almighty and the safeguards against perjury in courts 
of justice; and who taught his followers that in our dealings with our 
fellowmen we have no guide above expediency. 

The Hon. Wm. E. Seward, Mr. Lincoln's Secretary of State, said, 
"There is a higher power than the Constitution which regulates our 
authority over domain. Slavery must be abolished and we must do it." 
Senator Charles Sumner, of Massachusetts, said, "The fugitive slave 
law is filled with horror. We are bound to disobey this act." William 
Lloyd Garrison said, "The Union is a lie, the American Union is an im- 
posture, a covenant with death and agreement with hell. We are for 
its overthrow. Up with the flag of dismiion that we may have a free 
republic of our own." Joshua R. Giddings said, "I look forward to the 
day when servile insurrection in the South will come, when the black 
man, armed with British bayonets, led by British officers, shall assert 
his freedom and wage a war of extermination against his master." 
Horace Greely said, "The Union is not worth preserving; it is not 
worth supporting in connection with the South." Anson P. Burlin- 
game said, "The times demand and we must have an anti-slavery con- 
stitution, an anti-slavery Bible and an anti-slavery God." And these 
same sentiments filled the abolitionist party platform that nominated 
Mr. Lincoln in 1860 for President of the United States. 

At the opening of the 36th Congress, first session, the House stood 
upon roll call, 109 Republicans or Radicals to 101 Democrats, and 
this terrible state of affairs confronted those lovers of the Union who 
had hoped against hope to save the Union from the destruction this 
radical party was rushing it toward. The contest for Speaker of the 
House was closely drawTi. John Sherman, of Ohio, drew to him all 
his party but three votes. After seven weeks of balloting without 
election, Sherman withdrew from the race and Wm. Pennington, of 
New Jersey, Republican, was elected by one vote. The Kansas and 
other questions were before Congress to keep in agitation the public 
mind. The most potent of all these was that question of squatter 
sovereignty. Mr. Davis offered a set of resolutions on Feb. 2, 1860, 
hoping to stay the dreadful result that must follow if the fanatics of 
the North persisted in carrying out their designs. The Northern Demo- 
crats arrayed themselves against the South on this great question with 
Stephen A. Douglass. Now came the Charleston convention. On 
April 23, 1860, the National Democratic Convention was called to 
order in the city of Charleston, S. C, to nominate a candidate for 
president. There was a wide difference of opinion in the convention 
on the subject of admitting slavery into the new territories. Mr. Stephen 



Cfje ^tate0man 35 



A. Douglass was the leader of the squatter sovereignty wing of the 
party. All the delegates from the North, West and South who opposed 
the extension of slavery flocked to the Douglass banner. The old or- 
ganization, the strict constructionists of the Constitution, stood solidly 
for and demanded equal rights for the South under the Constitution. 
After the convention had gotten into working order the very first ballot 
disclosed the great sectional line drawn. The majority report on plat- 
form resolved that it was the duty of the Federal Government to pro- 
tect all citizens in their rights of property and persons in the territories, 
and it was the duty of the Government to admit the territories when 
the Government should be lawfully organized, whether slavery should 
be permitted or abolished. 

The minority report recognized the great difference of opinion be- 
tween the two wings of the party, and resolved to abide by the decis- 
ions of the Supreme Court of the United States upon the questions of 
constitutional law. They thus ignored the decisions of the Supreme 
Court previously made and promulgated on this question, but promised 
to abide by some future decisions. Those who saw the animus of 
this minority report saw that it merely meant to differ with the major- 
ity report on all questions and stood ready to annul the opinions of 
the court by one pretext or another. 

The South demanded a distinct expression by the convention on 
this question of Supreme Court decisions; when the vote was taken 
some States voted as a unit, others voted by the preference of their in- 
dividual delegates. Pennsylvania votes made of the minority a ma- 
jority. The Cotton State delegates saw at once the inexpediency of 
voting that in future the Democrats would abide by the decisions of 
the Supreme Court. To do this was to acknowledge that the decisions 
of that court already made were not final. The Cotton States refused 
to vote as did the Old Line Democrats and the resolution was lost. 
The vote of the convention to observe the two-thirds rule destroyed 
all Mr. Douglass' chance for the nomination, but his friends would 
have Douglass or nobody. On April 30, Louisiana, Alabama and Ore- 
gon withdrew from the convention. The chairman of the convention, 
Caleb Gushing, withdrew a part of the Massachusetts delegation. Then 
the convention passed a resolution to replace the delegates who left 
with new delegates. On May 1 Georgia withdrew from the conven- 
tion. Right in this convention Massachusetts voted twenty-six times 
her forty-nine votes for Jefferson Davis as the Democratic party nomi- 
nee for the presidency and Benj . F. Butler led this vote. No nomina- 
tion was made at Charleston. On June 18 the convention adjourned to 
meet at Baltimore, Md. 

At Baltimore the convention met again, Caleb Gushing still in the 
chair. Douglass was nominated by one wing of the party, Mr. Breck- 



30 Cftree Stories Sn £>ne 

enridge by the other. The Repubhcans nominated Mr. Lincoln and 
over our divided house he was elected President by part of the people 
of the United States with the express understanding that he would 
rule in hostility to the South, while pretending to act as the guardian 
of the whole country. After Mr. Lincoln's inauguration the whole 
South was in a state of agitation; the fanatics of the North were urging 
on the destruction they desired of the Union and the constitutional right 
of slavery. South Carolina, in convention, seceded; then followed 
Mississippi. Mr. Davis then withdrew from the Senate of the United 
States, making one of the most pathetic appeals ever made before 
that body for the Union. He remained in Washington city ill for more 
than one week, hoping he would be arrested; that the test of the states' 
right to withdraw from the Union could be made before the courts. 
"I hope," he said to Col. Chestnut, "the President will act with modera- 
tion and will not listen to his bad advisers, the fanatics and abolition- 
ists. If they will only give me time all is not lost. If these fanatics 
rule with violence on one side and extreme sense of wrong on our side 
the Union will be dissolved and woe must follow to the country." Mr. 
Davis sent telegrams and letters all over the South, begging and ask- 
ing postponement of action, hoping in his love for the Union to save 
it from destruction and ruin. When all hope was gone Mr. Davis 
left Washington his heart bowed in sorrow. He arrived in Mississippi, 
his home, and was appointed commander-in-chief of the state's forces 
and went about the work of getting the state into defensive attitude. 
The Montgomery Convention met to organize the Confederate Govern- 
ment, elect provisional officers and do such other things as was necessary 
for the new government now that the war cloud had burst over the 
land. The South had withdrawn from the Union of States; a statesman 
was needed as well as a trained soldier. A man with a will to do, a soul 
to dare. In Mr. Davis we found the ideal man to guide the destinies 
of the infant republic, organize her civil departments and steer the ship 
clear of the rocks and breakers of those turbulent times. By common 
assent all the delegates assembled in convention at Montgomery, 
Ala., chose Mr. Davis as the best-fitted man as first President of the 
young Confederacy. In 1862 he was elected by the votes of all 
people of the seceding states Constitutional President of the Con- 
federate States of America. 

Positively, Mr. Davis did not seek the position; the position sought 
him. After the state of Mississippi seceded from the Union, Mr. Davis 
was appointed by the Governor commander-in-chief of the state 
forces, and he was as much astonished as man could be when the Mont- 
gomery convention chose him President. It is absurd for the writers 
and historians of the North to insist, as they do, that Mr. Davis 
was the choice of the politicians and not of the whole people of the 



€:bt Statesman 37 



South. He was absolutely the people's choice. The movement of the 
South in 1861 was sudden and it was intense it is true, but it was not 
the work of politicians; it was the action of a people who had been 
rudely awakened from their dream of security. A great danger pre- 
sented itself to the whole South. A necessity for quick action con- 
fronted the people. Their liberty and happiness were threatened by 
the fanatics who had gotten control of the Government power, and 
these people left the South but one course; that was separation from 
the Union of States. 

When Mr. Davis received official notice of his appointment as pro- 
visional President of the Confederacy, as I said before, he was aston- 
ished, and had he followed the bent of his own inclination he would 
have declined the honor; but his loyalty to the South, his love of the 
people, his devotion to duty, made him cast aside all thoughts of self 
and surrender himself to the good of his people and his beloved South. 
And I want to impress upon the generation of today this fact: We 
of the past know it is true, that Jefferson Davis was the most unsel- 
fish patriot and friend that ever lived — gentle in manner, kind in dis- 
position, with an open hand of charity for all who needed his help, 
with a devotion to duty, with faith in God's help, Jefferson Davis was 
the ideal man of his day. 

After Mr. Davis was inaugurated President of the Confederate 
States, so great was his love for the Union and its perpetuation and 
his hope that no blood would be shed, he carried out and appointed 
the peace commission as authorized by the provisional congress. This 
commission was composed of the South's best and patriotic citizens, 
A. B. Roman, Louisiana; Martin J. Crawford, Georgia; John B. For- 
syth, Alabama. The political views of these gentlemen had no weight 
with Mr. Davis in making the appointments. Judge Roman of Loui- 
siana, was a Whig; Mr. Crawford, Georgia, a States right Democrat 
and Mr. Forsyth an ardent and zealous Douglass man. He gave them 
no instructions but left all to their partiotism and honest conviction 
of right, and this alone was their guide. But nothing came of this at- 
tempt upon the part of the South to prevent bloodshed. This commis- 
sion went to Washington city and were deceived to such an extent 
by the new President's advisors, the fanatical leaders of the North 
that had determined upon war and only war, they left in sorrow when 
their last hope of peace had fled. I cannot go into details of this story 
of deception and fraud played upon our commission by Mr. Lincoln 
and his Cabinet to gain time; it is obtainable by all who care to read it. 

War was now upon us. Its iron hand was raised to crush the Con- 
federacy. All promises had been broken by the Northern leaders; the 
tie that bound us as a union broken by the treachery of the fanatical 



38 Cftree ^torie0 3n SS)m 

North. Mr. Lincoln had called for troops to coerce the South back 
into an unbearable union. On May 6, 1861, the Army of the Con- 
federate States was lawfully established in lieu of the provisional 
army, and war was on. 

"No man," said an eminent writer, "unless it was Washington, was 
ever placed in a position so fraught with danger, so burdened with 
cares and responsibilities, as was Mr. Davis when he became President 
of the Confederacy." With this writer I most heartily concur and go 
further and say no man could have filled the position and performed 
the duties of the office better than Mr. Davis. His name v/ill be re- 
vered by all Southern men, women and children. His place will be high 
upon the scroll of fame; no name will be written in truthful history 
above that of Mr. Davis. His grand character, genial nature, honesty 
of purpose, adherence to principle, made him the idol of our people. 
And the day will come when in the whole country Jefferson Davis 
will be held as the greatest American patriot that ever lived. 

We can fully understand why the press, the pulpit and the historians 
of the North slander Mr. Davis. They are paid for it. Whatever 
slander is put forth by the press, pulpit or speaker of the North is taken 
by the Northern people as gospel truth. These people do not want 
the truth; they don't care for it. But I camiot understand how any 
man who wore the gray coat of the Confederacy and honestly believed 
in the principle for which he fought can ever harshly criticize Mr. 
Davis's work as President of the Confederate States. We grant it 
that Mr. Davis's public life is public property and every man has a 
right to his personal opinion. But whenever a Confeclerate soldier 
speaks lightly of President Davis and questions his acts as President 
of the Confederacy, he puts it into the power of our enemies to say 
we had not the faith we professed in our leader nor our cause. It is a 
fact that all the criticisms made of Mr. Davis and his work, as a rule, 
are made in total ignorance of the facts and conditions that surrounded 
the case upon which Mr. Davis acted and with which so much 
fault is found by his critics. We have often heard Mr. Davis blamed 
in the most senseless manner by people who have nothing better upon 
which to base their criticisms than some slanderous article they read 
in a newspaper, novel or mazazine. These people do not inform them- 
selves yet they loudly proclaim. "They pin their opinions to no man's 
coat sleeve" and yet they will base an opinion upon some very irre- 
sponsible Northern publication. 

But the climax of bosh is to blame Mr. Davis for the failure of the 
Confederacy to establish its independence. If those people who blame 
him would simply read current history they would soon discover 
how little they knew about the real cause of the Confederacy's collapse. 



Clje %tate0man 39 



No man, we do not care who he might have been nor what may have 
been his abihty, had he been in the Presidential chair of the Confed- 
eracy in 1864-' 65 could have done more than Mr. Davis did do to 
avert the end and change the result. No power on earth, no power 
but that of God's, could have stayed the collapse of the Confederacy 
after those twin monsters, hunger and starvation forced our gates. 
These monsters hastened the end. "The dark shadows of slander 
always follow the defeated and the leaders of a defeated cause are al- 
ways the victims;" they must suffer. Their wisest counsel, their purest 
motives are distorted by slander and misrepresentation into acts of 
treachery to the people and the cause they love. The most self-sac- 
rificing acts are made by slander and misrepresentation to look like 
the blackest villainies, and it is a well-known fact that there have been 
men who wore the garb of the Confederate soldier that dared-to im- 
pugn and misrepresent Robert E. Lee. How then was it possible for 
Mr. Davis to escape the mahgnity of the tongues that would assail 
Robert E. Lee, the purest character the world has ever known. Slander 
and hatred were not born in 1861-'65; nor was their birthplace the South. 
These monsters began their existence at the birth of time. The history 
of all nations, the history of all people who fail in the cause of right 
or wrong is their leaders must suffer and the South was no exception 
to this rule. No man has yet been able to point out one act of Presi- 
dent Davis during his term of office that can be tortured or twisted 
into the cause of our failure. There was a multiplicity of causes com- 
bined that brought about the collapse of our cause, and I think it can 
truthfully be said that none of all the causes were so potent as those 
of hmiger and starvation. God alone could have controlled these and 
averted the end. 

We would ask this of every man who wore the gray: Do you believe 
because we failed to establish our independence that our cause was 
unholy, unrighteous, unjust and the principles for which we fought 
unpatriotic? If you do believe these things take off that gray coat, 
the emblem of the past. It is the emblem of a principle that made you 
a traitor to your manhood, a traitor to your God. The principles for 
which we fought and defended our homes are as holy and just today 
as they were in 1861-'65. They can never die. The cause was truth it- 
self. We were right in 1861, we are right now, although right is strangled 
by illegal amendments to the Constitution, enacted by a Congress 
filled with carpet-baggers, scallywags and tramps, who had not the 
r ght of citizenship in the Southern States by birth nor residence. 
Do not all these truths prove that when Mr. Seward spoke of the 
higher power that regulated the power of his party over domain was 
the law of might — the law which disregards the divine law and ignores 
justice and truth. 



40 Cfjree Stories 3n One 

I want to call your attention to a misstatement of a fact continually 
made by the Northern people and often by our own people, i. e., 
that the South submitted her cause to the arbitration of the sword; 
she lost, and lost her right of appeal. This statement of our case is false, 
in fact, it is false in construction, it is false in law. We did not submit 
our cause to the arbitration of war. We left the union of states, ex- 
ercising the legal right given us by the Constitution, and simply asked 
to be let alone. When armed forces invaded our states and threatened 
our homes, we took up arms in defense of our loved ones and our 
legal rights, and exercised the divine right of self-protection and self- 
preservation as free American citizens. This, I say, is the correct 
statement of our position in 1861-'65, and this will be our true posi- 
tion in the truthful history of those times. We were outnumbered and 
overpowered and we are willing to accept the results; but we must 
not be asked or expected to say our cause was unholy or unpatriotic 
and our leaders traitors. In the light of events since the close of the 
Civil War, I think it is clear to all honest men that the South was 
right in her position of 1861-'65 and is still right. Facts are daily coming 
to the surface that should prove to those who care for truth in history, 
that it would have been just as impossible for the Confederacy to 
have succeeded under any other leadership as it was under the leader- 
ship of Mr. Davis. We were shut in from all commerce with the outer 
world; now and then a blockade runner entered our ports and brought 
us word from the outer world. We had no navy. Within our gates was 
a relentless enemy, the Union man, who let no opportunity pass to 
convey to the enemy outside our position. We were surrounded by a 
well-armed, well-fed, well-clothed army, that outnumbered us two to 
one. Our army was poorly armed, illy fed and badly clothed. If we 
lost a man it was a gap in the ranks we could not fill. Yet we had the 
courage of conviction that our cause was just, but I say again of all 
the factors so potent in the collapse of our cause, none were so potent 
as the starvation of our troops and people. Human nature could not 
have done more than we did do to avert the end, and I honestly say 
if it had not been for the guiding hand of Jefferson Davis upon the 
helm of the ship of state and the invincible sword of Robert E. Lee 
at the head of our army our Appomattox would have come long before 
it did. 

When the end came Mr. Davis was made the victim of the slander 
and hatred of the Northern pulpit and press. Behind these stood the 
fanatical politicians, vieing with each other in slandering our leader 
and our people. This was the part of their scheme to hide from the 
masses the treasure and lives it had cost the North to accomplish the 
robbery of the legal rights of the people of the South. 



Cjbe Statesman 41 



Mr. Davis was arrested, confined in a cell at Fortress Monroe, ironed 
like a criminal by Gen. Nelson A. Miles, unable to eat the coarse food 
given him, unable to sleep because of the constant tramp of the guard 
in his cell. What cruel, inhuman treatment, inflicted upon this broken old 
man, whose only crime was his love of liberty, justice, truth and pat- 
riotism. Kept in this cell, denied even the necessities of life for so 
long a time that even his very torturers became ashamed of their 
cruelty and released him on a bond. They indicted him for treason 
and then dare not try him before their venal courts, packed as they 
were by men who would have willingly obeyed any inhuman order of 
a corrupt Government. Yea, gladly would these creatures of a fanat- 
ical power hung Mr. Davis. Their cruel cowardly cry for his life will 
stand forever a stain upon that party made great by Lincoln's name. 

After Mr. Davis was released from prison he lived amongst the 
people of his beloved South, persecuted by a vindictive Government 
he helped to make great. He was deprived of citizenship; robbed of 
all civil rights. He was a man without a country yet he had a country. 
It was in the hearts of the Southern people. In that country he was 
the uncrowned king. If the people of the South or the Confederate 
soldier ever forgets the sacrifices made by Jefferson Davis for them, 
then, indeed, will come the second apostacy of man upon earth. In- 
gratitude will take the place of virtue and the story of 1861-'65 cease 
to be told. It will be blotted from the record forever. But this will 
never be. When the bar of truthful history shall judge Mr. Davis and 
his work, the verdict will be written — Jefferson Davis, the American 
patriot, whose adherence to principle, fortitude under trial, fidelity to 
duty, rectitude of private and public life, the martyr to the cause of 
justice and truth. In life slander did not smirch him; it cannot reach 
him now. 

It is the duty of every man who loves the South and her treasured 
memories of the past to teach the generation of today the truthful 
side of our cause and our part in the great struggle of right against 
might. Teach the young generation of today the causes that led up 
to the war. This is far more important than the history of our battles 
that every schoolboy is familiar with. Let the truth be told that our 
boys and girls may fully understand our side of the great question 
and be able to intelligently defend our names when we have passed over 
into the camp grounds of eternity. There should be no untruthful history 
taught in our schools. All histories that are not truthful and fair should 
be banished. Every home, every library, every school in the South 
should have a copy of Mr. Davis's work, "The Decline and Fall of the 
Confederacy." This should be the text-book of our public schools 
and not the unfair, untruthful histories that are used today. We should 
put into the hands of our young people Mr. Davis's work as we put 



42 Cl)ree ^torieg In i)ne 

into their hands the Bible. It is a book that all Southern men and wo- 
men can feel proud of. It is a book of which no honest American citi- 
zen should feel ashamed. It is a work stamped with true statesman- 
ship, filled with patriotism. It is a clear, concise, truthful statement 
of the whole question and all facts as they existed before and during 
the war of 186 1-' 65. I do not claim for Mr. Davis infallibility nor im- 
peccability. He was human like you and I. He made some mistakes and 
committed some errors that may look very gigantic to us without the 
facts of the case before us; when, in truth, if we had all the facts, we 
would more than likely praise as wisdom that which we now condemn 
as folly. Human nature cannot be perfect nor can all men agree upon 
questions of public and private character, and yet men can be honest 
in their views and convictions : but I am forced to say, after a careful 
study of all the questions bearing on the great conflict, that I cannot 
concede to the leaders of the fanatical parties of the North of 1861-'65, 
one particle of honesty in their attitude toward the South. Commer- 
cialism, greed and envy has much to do with their opinions. Their 
love of humanity and the negro was simply cant and hypocrisy of 
the most flimsy character. What they deny the negro in Massachu- 
setts they insist he shall have in the South. We had the negro laboter; 
the North would have him free; not to help the negro, but to cripple 
the industries of the South and to keep, if possible, the Radical Party 
in power by the negro vote. Thank God, we had a people war could 
not destroy; cruelty nor persecution could not make them forget their 
past and its glories; can we ever forget the list of crimes committed 
against our liberty, that forced upon us the calamity of war and the 
days of reconstruction? I repeat that the negro was but one factor 
in the war. Beyond him was the great principle of states' rights, of 
which Mr. Davis was always the South's champion and which Blaine 
and Sherman claimed for their states, California and Nevada claims 
today. When we formed the Confederacy we placed upon Mr. Davis's 
shoulders the toga of the Presidency as the best fitted man to guide 
our ship of state through the turbulent sea of political turmoil and war. 
He did not seek the office. The office was forced upon him; honestly,, 
faithfully, ably and patriotically he performed the duties imposed 
upon him by the people and for the best interests of the people. Cruelty 
and persecution could not weaken his great love for humanity 
nor swerve him from liberty's cause. His greatness of soul was beyond, 
the small things of life. The great men of the times, said an eminent 
English prelate, are always a helpless mark for the coarse lies and vul- 
garity of a peering malice; the sad, weak breath of envy always wounds, 
those that attain distinction. Fame cannot escape slander. Greatness 
of soul cannot escape envy, and Jefferson Davis was not an exception, 
to this rule. 



CJ)e statesman 43 



But I would say this to all men who wore the gray, do not be led 
away to harshly criricise Mr. Davis. It is your bounded duty to hold 
up to the youth of today the character of Jefferson Davis as a model 
for them. And I say without fear of contradiction if they will investi- 
gate for themselves his private and public life they will find a gentle, 
pure heart, a great soul, that was filled with love for God and his 
country. 

Let no man who wore the gray forget himself ever to descend into 
the mire of slander and hate with the enemies of our beloved leader. 
All that has been uttered by the pulpit, press and people of the North 
against Mr. Davis is but assertion; this is not proof; abuse is not dem- 
onstration. That which we have claimed for him stands boldly out 
before the world, sustained by justice and supported by the staff of 
truth. It stands unbent beneath the mountain of errors and misrep- 
resentation hurled against him by malice and hate. His was the soul 
that never forgot its greatness. His was the manhood that never 
forgot its duty to God nor man. His was the heart filled with Christian 
charity as the Master taught, and I do believe as implicitly as I believe 
in a future that Jefterson Davis surrendered back to his Creator an 
unspotted soul, unsmirched by treachery or deceit. The bright dawn 
of the day that is to proclaim Jefferson Davis the greatest of American 
patriots is almost here ; the points of the bright sun are coming up out 
of the night of malice and slander; it will burst over the world to set 
no more. All the world will love Jefferson Davis's name as we of the 
South always have and will. 



These facts presented to our children and the world are not exag- 
gerated nor distorted to meet our case. They are the historical facts 
that cannot be blotted out nor erased from American history. 



The Confederate Soldier — the Ideal 
Soldier of the World 



THE HISTORY of every nation is written upon its battle-fields. The history 
of the Confederate States was written in 1861-'65, upon the battle plains 
of the South. Fame then wrote upon her scroll in the indelible ink 
of glory the name and valor of every Confederate soldier who wore the gray 
and did his duty to his state in obedience to her laws. 

When the American Colonies began their struggle to take from the King of 
England the power of government and transfer it to the people of the Colonies, 
there was gatlaered and mustered an invincible army of patriots. They_ were 
banded together in Liberty's holy name. No such army was needed again, no 
such armywas gathered again, until 1861, when the Southern States were compelled 
to protect themselves against the flagrant usurpation of power and the open 
violation of their constitutional rights by the fanatical party that had become 
possessed of the government reins. It became necessary for the South and her 
people to gather and organize an army to protect our homes and our legal rights. 
The necessity was urgent, and from this urgent necessity was born the Confederate 
Army. 

This army of Confederate Patriots was just as invincible on the field of battle 
as was the Colonial Army of 1776. And I here make this claim — that the army of 
1861-'65 was not conquered by the army of coercion sent by the fanatics of the 
North against us. We were defeated by that monster — starvation — the foe whose 
strength conquers the bravest. 

The Confederate Army was a gathering of ideal soldiers. No such army will 
ever again be gathered, unless collected from the sons of the men in gray of 1861- 
'65. It was composed of the intelligence and valor of the South, and I do not believe 
there ever was collected upon the face of the earth men that possessed to a greater 
degree the essentials to the making of good soldiers as did the Confederate re- 
cruits of 1861. 

The essentials necessary to the making of good soldiers are intelligence, obed- 
ience and COURAGE. Courage without the force of intelligence to direct it counts 
for very little in battles. An army may be ever so brave, but, if it lacks intelli- 
gence, it cannot win victories from its more intelligent foes. 

It is conceded by all military students that the raw Confederate recruit of 
1861 developed into an efficient soldier more rapidly than any other man known 
to military history; and this same authority agrees that the Corifederate Army's 
intelligence, obedience and courage was of the highest order. This was the power 
that made the Confederate soldier so effective and so destructive of his opponents 
upon the battle-field. I shall make this claim, that the Confederate Army of 1861- 
'65 was the grandest army ever organized, and the Confederate soldier the ideal 
soldier of the world; the most intelligent, obedient and courageous the world has 
ever known. He was also the most destructive. His intelligence to understand 
all orders, given him by his commander, his obedience and courage to execute 
the order made the man in gray the effective fighter he was. Aiid this combi- 
nation of the essentials made the old "Reb" of 1861-'65 invincible whenever and 
wherever he was not outnumbered upon the field of battle. 



46 Cf)tee ^totieg 3n SDnt 

There was another essential we had beyond the three named. We had the 
absolute conviction that, in the sight of God and man, our cause was just, legal 
and holy. Guided by such conviction, backed by manhood, honor and right, could 
the Confederate soldier have been other than he was — the ideal soldier of the 
world. He loved his home, the land of his birth; he obeyed the laws, and was ever 
ready to defend them. He did not fight for gold. He fought in defence of his home. 
He fought for a principle which was honor, justice and truth combined. These are 
the principles that make heroes of nations. These principles made heroes of the 
men in gray who from 1861-'65 were down in the mud and toted the gun. 

I do not intend, in this paper, to refer in an extended way to our grand com- 
manders who led us through the struggle. They have had their full share of praise 
and glory. Their names and their deeds will live forever. They deserve all the 
glory that has been showered upon them by the world. It is theirs by right; no 
power on earth can tear one leaf from their laurel -crowned brows. 

I want to talk tonight of the man who was down in the mud, the man in the 
ranks, the man who tramped under the burning sun, the man who faced the cold 
of winter, barefooted and almost naked, and carried the gun; the man whose in- 
telligence, obedience and courage during the four long years of bloody war made 
it possible for Robert E. Lee and the immortal "Stonewall" Jackson to plan the 
battles and win victories from armies double their numbers. To the man 
who marched down in the mud, badly armed, poorly clad, oftimes hungry, cer- 
tainly belongs part of the glory of the past. He won it; he deserves it. Grand old 
hero in gray! Your intelligence, obedience and courage made you the wonder of 
the world. You never were driven from the battle-field in panic and rout. If you 
were it was caused by the blundering of your officers and was not your 
fault. A grand army was the Confederate army; a wonderful soldier was 
the man in gray. Guided by the wisdom of Lee, led by the genius of 
Jackson, aided by the dash of Stuart, Ashby and the noble others who wore the 
gray, you often grasped victory from the enemy when defeat seemed inevitable. 

The record shows that you never fought one battle during the whole war that 
your oponents did not outnumber you, two to one, often five to one. The Union 
Army was always better armed than we were. They were better clothed, always 
well fed, and never failed to have an abundance of the best ammunition. In 
fact, they had nothing that was necessary to make an army effective that 
money could purchase, and yet with all this advantage inequipment and numbers, 
you, with your old flintlock gun, often drove them from the field of battle in panic 
and rout. 

We did not have the improved guns of that day, nor the good rations, clothing 
and ammimition. But we had something better than all these. We had the abso- 
lute conviction that our cause was just and holy, and this gave the Confederate 
soldier the moral and physical courage, the strength that $13 per month and the 
best of rations cannot give. 

We often hear the question asked, but never by a Confederate soldier, why it 
was that "Stonewall" Jackson so often disregarded all rules of military science as 
taught in the books, flinging them aside and fighting battles under conditions 
from which most military leaders would retreat! This question can be readily 
answered by any man who followed old "Stonewall" up and down the Valley. 
And the answer is this: "Stonewall" Jackson had implicit faith in his men in the 
ranks and these men had blind confidence in him; they implicitly trusted him and 
he knew he was backed in any move he might make by the man who carried the 
gim, who would fully imderstand all orders given him. And "Stonewall" Jackson 
also knew that his men in the ranks had the obedience and courage to execute all 
orders given them, hence Jackson could fling aside the laws of the books, for he 
felt perfectly safe in facing double his numbers and defeating armies, which he 



Ci)e ^oIDiet 47 



repeatedly did, five times his number. It is now admitted that "Stonewall" 
Jackson and his men never fought one battle in the Valley that he was not com- 
pelled to fight double his numbers. And with Jackson, the rule was to make the 
enemy fight or retreat wherever he met them, no matter how superior might be 
their numbers to his own. 

I am going to prove my claim for the man in gray, who was down in the mud, 
by the reports of the Adjutant-General, U. S. A., 1861-'65. A study of these reports 
will interest those who care to read them. It will convince those who choose to 
investigate, that, in every battle fought between the Confederate Army and the 
Union Army, 1861-'65, the Union Army always outnumbered the Confederate 
forces two to one, often five to one; and, notwithstanding the "Yanks" had more 
men, better guns, surer and better ammunition, they never drove us from the 
field in panic and rout as we often drove them. I do not deny the fact that we 
were sometimes compelled to fall back, and, in doing so, we lost guns and men. 
But I do say we never ran in panic and rout; never lost our organization as an 
army to such an extent that the enemy felt safe in following us in our retreats. 
But this you will bear me out in saying, that the Federal Army did more than 
once repeat its rout and panic of 1861 of Manassas field. 

And this is one of the confirmations of my claim for the Confederate soldier 
that he was the ideal soldier of the world; the fighting soldier without an equal. 
He was cool in action, steady under fire, never losing his head. He understood 
his duty, he knew what was expected of him, and he never disappointed his officers. 
His old gray jacket was the emblem of his cause; it was his badge of nobility; 
his pride, his honor was concentrated in his love for the cause; death could not 
make him sacrifice it. 

And let me say right here, whenever you come in contact with a man, even 
at this day, who is not proud of the fact that he honorably wore that old gray 
jacket, mud-bespattered as it was, you can put it down as a certainty he was 
not much in love with the cause in those days of blood. There are but few men, 
thank God, who wore the gray that are ashamed to proclaim it today. I say we 
were right in 1861-'65; we are right today. I sometimes hear men say, "We thought 
we were right." That is not the proper way to put it. 

I say, before God and man, I absolutely know the principle for which we fought 
was holy, just and legal, and we must always say so. If there is a Confederate vet- 
eran living today who cannot look the world in the face and say from the depths 
of his heart that he was right, his cause patriotic and just, he should take off his 
coat of gray, bury it beneath the sod, and over its grave write, "Here lies buried 
the emblem of the principle that led me astray, made me untrue to my God and 
myself, made me a traitor to my country, made me battle for a principle I did not 
believe." Can you, comrades, say this? I know you cannot and I know you will not. 

Now, the record — I wish to call your especial attention to figures to sustain 
my claim for the men in gray. These figures are taken from the official Army Re- 
ports of the United St tes and Confederate States, which are in the posses- 
sion of the War Department at Washington. Remember these figures, tell them to 
your children's children, teach them to the generation of today, that they may 
not be forgotten when you and I have passed away. These facts, these figures 
will enable our children to tell our story with pride and without shame. They 
can say, "My father followed Lee and Jackson and the flag of the Confederate 
States, whither it led, unto the end. Their cause was the cause of liberty, as 
holy and just as men ever battled for in Liberty's sacred name. 

The historians of the North have not been idle since the close of the great 
struggle in writing what they claim is fair and impartial history of 1861-'65, and I, 
regret to say, some of these perverted and false histories have found place in our 



48 Cljree Stories 3n One 

public and private schools of the South. The most of these histories, if not all, 
say the South and her soldiers fought solely for the enslavement of the negro, 
and that no other principle was involved. I will show you how the facts and figures 
completely refute this slander, and I believe the date I give you is near abso- 
lutely correct. 

In each one hundred white citizens in the South in 1861, there were but four 
that owned slave property. There were enlisted into the Confederate Army, 
during the four years of war, 639,000 men, all told. Of this number, you will see, 
there were but 200,000 who o%vned slave property. If this be true (and it IS true) 
I would ask these historical slanderers of the South this question: If there were 
but 200,000 slave-owners in the Confederate Army, in the name of common sense, 
what were the other 400,000 fighting for? Surely not for fim. War is not fim. There 
is no fim in killing, and war means killing. It means death in all its horrible forms. 
It means suffering, pain and want. It means all the ills that can be inflicted upon 
humanity, and surely there is no pleasure in the inhumanity that follows in the 
wake of war; I care not how humanely it may be conducted. 

There was a principle involved in that great struggle of '61-'65;a principle 
these slanderers do not want the world to see. It was a principle beyond that of 
negro slavery. We fought for the preservation of the Constitution and the guaran- 
teed rights of all citizens. This was the paramount issue of the war and these 
slanderers of the South and her people know it. And when they admit this truth 
their cause is lost and the South is vindicated before the world; and this, these 
perverters of truth do not intend if they can prevent it. We stood in 1861-'65 for 
this great principle; we were the true defenders of the Constitution then; we are 
its defenders now, and the world today concedes that the Confederate soldier 
was the true, honest patriot, the real defender of the Constitution and Republican 
form of government intended by the builders of this great Nation. 

Now let me get back to the figures and the man in gray. During the four years 
of war ('61-'65) the Confederate Army fought 2,261 battles. This does not include 
skirmishes and minor engagements; 521, or 25 per cent, of these battles were 
fought on Virginia soil. In 1861, the Confederate armies fought 150 battles; in 
1862, 564; in 1863, 627; in 1864, 779; in 1865, 135. 

The Census of 1860 shows a population in the Northern States, subject to 
military duty, of 4,500,000. In the South, or properly the Thirteen Original Se- 
ceding States, a population of 1,046,000. The Adjutant-General's Report (United 
States Army, 1861-'65)says there were recruited into the United States Army, 
during the four years of war, 2,553,062 men of all arms. A corrected report and 
later figures say there were 2,800,000 and this figure, I think, is correct. Here, by 
their owti report, taking their own figures, they began the war and they 
led at all times, four men to our one. The very highest estimate ever put upon 
the Confederate Army in four years, all told, has been 639,000 men of all arrns. 
We had in the field all our available men; we could get no more; while the Union 
Army could and DID recruit from all parts of the globe. From Germany, if we 
can take the troops they had in this Valley as a guide, they obtained most of 
their recruits. I have seen men in this Valley in blue uniforms who could not tell 
their names and regiments in English to save their lives. Every man who followed 
"Stonewall" Jackson knows this is true. These foreigners wore the blue and were 
counted Yankee soldiers. 

It was not only from the European coimtries that the Federal armies were 
recruited, but they enlisted men from the Border and from the Seceding States. 
The Adjutant-General's Report (United States Army) shows Maryland fur- 
nished 53,316 white troops; 32,068 came from what is now West Virginia; from Ken- 
tucky, 79,025; Missouri, 169,111; South Carolina, 15,000: while North Carolina, 



Cfte ^olDiet 49 



Mississippi, Tennessee, Florida, and Louisiana all furnished white troops to the 
Yankee Army. This report of the Adjutant-General shows this fact — that the Un- 
ion Army recruited from the Thirteen Original Seceding States 300,000 white 
troops, just half as many men as we had in our army at any time. 

In plainer terms, the Confederate Army recruited 639,000 men, the Union 
Army 300,000 traitors. When we stop to consider this traitor force within our 
gates, combined with that monster — starvation — is it not wonderful that we held 
out as long as we did? These figures, I think, go far to support my claim for the 
Confederate men in the ranks who were down in the mud. He was the grandest 
soldier the world ever knew. The man that toted the gun was the ideal soldier 
with which no other nation's soldiers can compare. 

Here is an extract from what C. B. Anderson says in his book, "Fighting Fed- 
erals from the South," and I use it for what it is worth. If it is true, and he claims 
to have data to prove it, then it is strange we lasted as long as we did: 

Who would suppose that Louisiana furnished more soldiers to the Union 
armies in the war between the States than did Rhode Island; that Virginia fur- 
nished 37,791 Federal soldiers, while Minnesota furnished 24,020; that Tennessee 
furnished 51,225 and New Hampshire only 33,937; that Kentucky furnished more 
than Maine and Missouri more than Wisconsin? 

These are the statements made by Mr. C. B. Anderson in his recent book 
"Fighting by Southern Federals." The evidence he provides appears to justify 
the claim. Mr. Anderson says there were 634,255 Southern-born men who fought 
against the South and for the preservation of the Union, divided as follows: Two 
himdred and ninety-six thousand, five hundred and seventy-eight white men from 
Southern States, 137,676 colored men living in the South and approximately 200,000 
men living in the North who were born in the South. He says many officers who 
rendered distinguished service in the Federal Army were natives of the South. 
He gives their names and the positions they held. Among them were 160 briga- 
dier-generals. There were 4,000 commissioned officers from Kentucky in the Fed- 
eral Army. Is it any wonder the South lost the battle? 

The author has brought out many interesting facts concerning the war never 
before published. He has reviewed the entire war period, mentioning important 
events as they occured day by day and vividly describing the famous engage- 
ments. The volume fills an important place in Civil War history. 

A word or two on pensions to corroborate further my claim for the Confed- 
erate soldier, for all I shall say goes in as proof positive of the claim. The Com- 
missioner of Pensions in his last Report says, That since the close of the war 
(1861-'65)the United States Government has paid to the United States soldiers of 
1861-'65, their widows and dependents, $4,073,816,352.89, total 1909 to July, 1910. 
This does not include salaries nor expenses in keeping and maintaining Soldiers' 
Homes. The number of cases, says the same Report, now pending and awaiting 
settlement under the General Pension Laws is 137,201, and those pensions that 
come under the act of June 27, 1890, number 142,679. The average value of each 
pension is $132. This pension list forms the great bulk of our public debt, and of 
this vast sum— $4,073,816,352.89 — the South has paid and is still paying in taxes 
one-third of the amoimt from which we derive no benefit. 

The Confederate soldier's family was robbed by the soldiers of the Union Army 
during the war; they were plundered by the carpet-baggers during the days of re- 
construction and we are bowed down now paying taxes to pension a lot of camp- 
followers and villains who never fired a gim nor stood in the line of battle. Not- 
withstanding the fact that this gigantic pension list shows the fighting ability of 
the Confederate soldier, we find it questioned by men in the North who persist 
in the slander that the old "Reb" of 1861-'65 would not and did not fight. 



50 Ci)ree Stories! 3n £Dne 

Let us now look into another proof of his claim to first rank. If the death-rate 
of army is to be taken as our guide and proof of the fighting ability of an army 
the Confederate Army takes first rank, for it is a fact, conceded and proven by 
the Record, that the Confederate armies, often, in battle, destroyed more than 
one-fourth of the enemy engaged. History furnishes no record of soldiers that will 
compare with the man in gray, who went into the fight with a flintlock gun and 
armed himself with the gun of his opponent. 

Here is a very interesting statement made by the Baltimore Sun, July 10th, 
on pensions. Washington, D. C, July 10 — "The cost of the nation's wars in pen- 
sions alone has been more than $4,000,000,000. With the close of the fiscal year 
1910, on Jime 30, figures were available showing that the four-billion-dollar 
mark has been passed during the past twelve months. 

"The total disbursements for pensions from the beginning of the Government 
to June 30, 1909, is given by the Pension Office as $3,913,082,513.73. The state- 
ment of the United States Treasury issued on July 1, shows that the total dis- 
bursements for pensions during the fiscal year ended last Thursday was $160,- 
733,839.16. These latter figures are unrevised, but when finally made up will run 
a fraction larger than the sum given. The amount carried in the Pension Appro- 
priation bill for the fiscal year 1910 was $160,908,000, so that the amount actually 
disbursed rims very close to the appropriations made. This gives a grand total 
of $4,073,816,352.89 spent on pensions to soldiers, sailors and marines, their wid- 
ows, minor children and dependent relatives." 

Cost Millions to Pay Them. 

"This does not include the cost of maintenance and expenses connected with 
the payment of pensions. Between 1866 and June 30, 1909, the amoimt spent for 
maintenance of the system — wholly aside from the payment of pensions — was 
$115,705,060.82, which, added to the aggregate paid for pensions, brings the grand 
total cost of the pension system up to $4,189,521,413.71 to June 30, 1910. 

"The amoimt disbursed from pensions from the Revolution to June 30, 1865, 
was $96,445,444.23. The amount disbursed for pensions since the Civil War, ex- 
clusive of cost of administration, has been $3,977,370,908.66, and including the cost 
of administration $4,093,075,969.48—40 times as great during the past 45 years 
as during the previous 75 years. 

What Wars Have Cost. 

"The amounts paid for pensions to soldiers, sailors and their dependents 
from the foundation of the Government to date may be showTi as follows: 

War of the Revolution $ 70,000,000.00 

War of 1812 45,757,396.84 

Indian wars 9,995,609.47 

War with Mexico 42,492,784.07 

Civil War 3,686,461,840.35 

War with Spain and Philippine Insurrection 26,383.805.21 

Regular establishment 15,507,028.02 

Unclassified 16,484,049.77 

Total to June 30, 1909 $ 3,913,082,513.73 

Total for 1909 to July 1, 1910 160,733,839.16 

Total for pensions to date $ 4,073,816,352.89 

Cost of administrat on, 1 65-1909 115,705,060.82 

Grand total cost of pensions and ex- 
penses of administration to date.$ 4,189,521,413.17 



Cf)e ^oIDier 51 



Started at $15,000,000 a Year. 

"The total amount spent on the pension system during the first year after 
the Civil War was $15,857,714.88, and the cost of administration during the fiscal 
year 1866 was only $417,165. There were then only 126,722 pensioners on the rolls. 
Since that time the number of pensioners has rapidly increased, until it now hov- 
ers aroimd the million mark, the number on the rolls on June 30, 1909, having 
been 946,194, of which pensions are paid to 632,557 persons on account of the Civil 
War. The distribution of these pensioners according to the wars, as given by the 
latest available table is as follows: 

Revolutionary War 1 

War of 1812 395 

Indian wars 4,625 

Mexican War 9,092 

Civil War 888,690 

Spanish War 27,095 

Regulars 16,296 

946,194 

"The distribution of the pensioners as to survivors, widows, etc., according 
to the latest available figures, is as follows: 

Invalid and aged survivors 632,557 

Widows 298,853 

Children 4,971 

Mothers 7,016 

Fathers 1,176 

Brothers, sisters, etc 295 

Helpless children 848 



946.194 



Only 593,961 of Them Veterans. 

"These tables show that while there are 888,690 persons being pensioned on 
account of the Civil War, that the actual number of survivors of the war on the 
pension list was 593,961, the rest of the Civil War pensioners being distributed 
among the classes of army and navy widows, children and other dependents. For 
the Civil War this distribution was as follows: 

Survivors 593,961 

Widows 285,137 

Minor children 4,508 

Mothers 2,996 

Fathers 493 

Brothers, etc 280 

Helpless children 837 

Army nurses 478 



888,690 

"The total amoimt paid during the fiscal year 1909 to these 888,690 Civil War 
pensioners was $152,868,814.40, leaving $9,104,889.37 distributed on account of 
other wars. The total paid to the regular establishment was $2,879,080.14, to 
pensioners of the Spanish-American War, $3,820,169.80; to pensioners of the Mexi- 
can War, $1,678,636.57 and to Indian war pensioners, $639,898.44. 



52 Cijree ^totieg 3n £Dne 



Laws by Which They are Paid. 

"Under the Age Pension law of 1907, $58,383,177.88 was paid during the fiscal 
year 1909 to survivors of the war over 62 years of age, while $34,637,978.20 was 
paid to Civil War survivors under the general disability laws, and $16,276,650.34 
was paid to Civil War survivors under the act of 1890. More than $42,000,000 
was paid during that year to widows of soldiers and sailors of the Civil War. Under 
the general law $12,270,711 was paid to Civil War widows, children and dependents, 
while the act of 1908, which increased the pensions to army and navy pensioners, 
resulted in an additional expenditure of $30,278,825.35 for widows. 

"From 1900 to 1904, inclusive, the number of certificates of pension issued 
was 621,842. From 1905 to 1909, inclusive, the number issued, not including 202,- 
577 increases imder the act of 1908 made by direction of former Commissioner of 
Pensions Warner to pension agents on the original certificates of the pensioners 
in order to save the pensioners the trouble and expense of filing applications there- 
for, was 1,011,082. This was an increase of 389,240 as compared with the previous 
five years. 

"From 1900 to 1904, inclusive, pensions amoimting to $693,351,107.68 were 
paid. From 1905 to 1909, inclusive, there was paid as pensions $733,365,352.08 so 
that the latter five-year period represents an increase of $40,014,244.40 in pension 
expenditures as compared with the five years of the decade. The year 1910 starts 
over another five-year period with an expenditure of $160,733,839. The amount 
appropriated by the last Congress in the Pension bill for the fiscal year 1911 just 
begun is $155,758,000, to which must be added an increase of approximately $2,000,- 
000 authorized by some 6,100 special private pension acts. 

Takes Half Tariff to Pay It. 

"Indications are that during the five-year period from 1910 to 1914, inclusive, 
the expenditure for pensions will be around $750,000,000 if not more, or nearly 
enough to build the Panama Canal twice, according to the original estimates of 
the engineers. The total amoimt spent on the construction of the canal to Jime 
30, 1910, was $204,096,342.07. The amount paid for pensions during the year just 
closed and to be spent during the fiscal year 1911, just begun, will aggregate more 
than $300,000,000. 

"This amount represents almost the entire customs revenue of the country 
in a single year. During the fiscal year which ended Jime 30, 1910, the aggregate 
amoimt collected from customs, the coimtry's greatest single source of revenue, 
was $332,785,323.27. During the fiscal year 1909 the country's revenue from 
customs, imder the Dingley law, was $300,711,933.95." 

Let us now look into another proof of his claim to first rank. If the death- 
rate of army is to be taken as our guide and proof of the fighting ability of an 
army the Confederate Army takes first rank, for it is a fact, conceded and proven 
by the Record that the Confederate armies often, in battle, destroyed more than 
one-fourth of the enemy engaged. History furnishes no record of soldiers that will 
compare with the man in gray, who went into the fight with a flmtlock gun and 
armed himself with the gvm of his opponent. 

Now, we look into the regimental losses and see what they show. All these 
figures are official, taken from the reports. In the battle of Gettysburg the 26th 
North Carolina Infantry lost 90 per cent, of its number engaged. This regiment 
went into the fight with 800 muskets strong and lost 558 men, killed and wounded. 
The survivors joined the Pickett charge and lost in killed and wounded all but 
80 men. Such regimental loss as this was never known before nor since Gettysburg. 
The 1st Maryland Confederate Regiment, and there was none better in the army, 



Cfte ^olDier 53 



lost of its numbers engaged 82 per cent.; the 21st Georgia lost 76 per cent.; the 6th 
Mississippi, 71 per cent.; the 5th Texas, 82 per cent. These losses show, at least, 
if nothing else, stubborn fighting qualities on the part of the Confederate soldier. 
In the Gettysburg fight our men fought against great advantages held by the 
Union Army. They had numbers and position on us, and yet the old Confederate 
destroyed 75.7 per cent, of the 114th Pennsylvania Regiment and 73.8 of the 101st 
New York Regiment who fought from behind breastworks. This shows that 
position and numbers cut small figure with the Confederate soldier if he had just 
half a chance to shoot. In the Sharpsburg or Antietam fight in Maryland, the 
20th Texas lost 83 per cent, of its number engaged, while the 12th Massachusetts 
lost but 76 per cent. At Antietam the Confederates fought against superior num- 
bers and position and, I claim, we worsted McClellan in this battle. As a proof 
of this fact I present the following question: If General Lee was whipped in this 
fight and his army demoralized, as the historians of the North claim, why did 
not McClellan follow up his great victory and destroy General Lee before he 
could cross over the Potomac River? 

The truth is just this: General Lee and his men in gray had so badly crippled 
the Union Army that they could not follow us, and those that did had cause to 
regret their temerity when Jackson waited for them at the river, at Sheperds- 
town Ford. These facts are all positive proof of my claims for the Confederate 
men in gray who were down in the mud. 

In May, 1863, the Confederate Army was solely on the defensive. General 
Lee was confronted by Grant with a large and well-equipped army. From Spotts- 
sylvania to Cold Harbor it was a continual fight, in which General Grant and his 
army were always foiled. 

The campaign begun by General Grant in the beginning of May, when he at- 
tacked Lee in the Wilderness, was made with an army of 118,000 men of all arms, 
according to the official statistics, while Lees' was given at 61,000, odds of very 
nearly two to one. When the campaign closed with the battle of Cold Harbor 
on June 1, Grant's losses were given as follows: 

KILLED WOUNDED 

The Wilderness 2,246 12,037 

Spottsylvania 2,725 13,416 

North Anna 591 2,734 

Cold Harbor 1,844 9,077 

Sheridan's First Raid 64 337 

Sheridan's Second Raid 150 741 

Total 7,620 38,342 

To these must be added the prisoners, making a grand total lost by Grant in 
that May campaign of 54,929, or nearly as many men as Lee's whole force and 
fully as many as he had for duty. 

I read in some Report but a short time ago this fact, that there was less im- 
pacting of Confederate guns than there were of Union guns. The Confederate 
guns showed but 5 per cent., the Union guns over 30 per cent. What is meant 
by impacting is putting more than one charge into a gun. Now this is another 
claim for the Confederate soldiers' intelligence in the use of the gun at least. 

The Surgeon-General's Report shows some interesting facts. There were 
killed and died of wounds during the war ('61-'65) 110,674 Union soldiers. The 
Confederate States' Surgeon-General's Report shows there were killed and died 
of wounds during 1861-'65, 67,000 Confederate soldiers. The number of Federal 
soldiers killed dead on the field was 74,524; Confederates killed dead on the field 



54 Ci)ree ^toties 3Jn 2Dne 

53,773. So here, you see, we killed 20,751 more Union soldiers than our own loss. 
It is said, but I have not investigated its accuracy, that one out of every three 
men enlisted in the Confederate Army was killed or wounded. If these 
figures are compared with the death-rates in the great battles of the world, we 
are amazed at the death-rate of 1861-'65. 

In the Russian war the loss was but 2.3 per cent, in each 100 men engaged; 
in the great Austrian war it was 2.6 per cent, in each 100 and in the Franco- 
Prussian war it was 3 per cent, in each 100. In the war of 1861-'65, the Federal 
loss was 4.7 per cent., while the Confederate loss was 9.5 per cent, in each 100 
men engaged. 

This last percentage is the largest death-rate recorded in history and presents 
another proof of the fighting qualities of the Confederate soldier. When we con- 
eider the arms he had imtil he captured better gims from the enemy we are lost 
in astonishment at the terrible execution and destruction the Confederate soldier 
did with his old flintlock gun. Yet here are the figures standing boldly out in con- 
firmation of the claim that the Confederate soldier was intelligent, courageous 

and DESTRUCTIVE. 

The man in gray, who marched and toted the gun, was a born fighter, whether 
he came from the schoolroom, the workshop or the field, and here are proofs of 
this. In the ranks of the Confederate Army there were 2,000 college professors 
and graduates, 400 of whom filled soldiers' graves. In the Union Army there were 
1,040, of whom 155 filled soldiers' graves. 

I do not believe we could build a monument too high or too costly to commem- 
orate the valor and fidelity of the man in gray; the man behind the gun; the man 
who for principle alone faced death, hunger and cold, marched in the mud, braved 
death in all its hideous forms and was faithful unto the end for the cause of justice 
and right. I say build him a monument as high and as broad as the mountains; 
build him a monument that will be proof against the storms of time; let it be the 
record for the coimtless millions who shall follow us, that they may read the 
history of the men in gray who tramped in the mud and carried the gun. 

Let it be the nation's tribute to the private soldier that the generations that 
come after us, in the flight of time, cannot say the South forgot her heroes. When 
this debt is paid the private Confederate soldier, living and dead, the man whose 
old gray jacket was the insignia of his nobility, a debt of honor long overdue, 
will be cancelled by the people of the South. 

I want to present a few figures taken from the Report of the United States 
Commissary of Prisoners of War (General Ludlow Hoffman, 1861-'65) which is the 
most complete refutation of the slander that the Confederate authorities treated 
inhumanely their prisoners of war. These charges of cruelty are made in the 
press and pulpits of the North even at this lale day. During the four years of the 
war the South held in her military prisons 270,000 Federal prisoners of war captured 
in the different battles. The United States had in her military prisons in the North 
222,000 Confederate prisoners of war. So, by the figures of the United States 
Government, the South held 50,000 more prisoners of war in her prisons than the 
United States had Confederate prisoners of war in their prisons, and the Report 
of the United States Commissary of Prisoners of War shows that out of each one 
hundred Confederate prisoners held in Yankee prisons, twelve died, while out of 
each one himderd Yankee prisoners of war held in Southern prisons and camps, 
but eight died. Do not lose sight of this fact — it is very important to this state- 
ment. These figures are taken from the Report of the United States Commissary 
of Prisoners of War and not from the Confederate Report on the subject. Also 
bear in mind the South held 50,000 more prisoners of war than the United States 
and 48,000 more Confederate prisoners of war died in Yankee prisons than there 



Cije Soldier 55 



were Federal prisoners of war died in Southern prisons. And yet we hear men, claim- 
ing intelligence in the North, crying out about Andersonville, the torture-house. 

The United States Government had an abundance of rations, medicines, cloth- 
ing and all else necessary to care for her prisoners of war to make them comforta- 
ble and keep them in health, while on the other hand the South had none of these 
things. The Confederate surgeons with the army were always short of medicines. 
So were our people. We had no clothing to give to our soldiers or prisoners, and 
often we had hardly rations to feed our armies. Our hospitals were always in need 
of the necessaries — let alone the comforts — and, notwithstanding all these draw- 
backs and insufficient supplies, there were 48,000 more prisoners of war died in 
Yankee prisons than Federal prisoners of war died in the prisons of the South. 

The people who make the charges of cruelty to prisoners of war by the Confed- 
erate authorities are either unable to read or are wilful liars and slanderers. 

Now, just a few more figures upon the relative strength of the Union and Con- 
federate Armies, and I am done with figures. In the 

SEVEN DAYS FIGHTING ABOUT RICHMOND 

The Federal Army had 108,000 men 

The Confederate Army had 80,726 

Federal excess 27,274 

SECOND MANASSAS. 

Federal Army 74,578 

Confederate Army 49,770 

Federal excess 24,808 

SHARPSBURG OR ANTIETAM. 

Federal Army 87,164 

Confederate Army 35,225 

Federal excess 51,939 

FREDERICKSBURG. 

Federal Army 100,000 

Confederate Army 78,228 

Federal excess 21,772 

In this battle General Lee used but 30,000 of his troops and beat General 
Burnside's army of 100,000. This is from the sworn testimony taken before the 
United States Committee of Congress on the Conduct of the War. General Burn- 
side was the witness and knew what he was telling the Committee. 

CHANCELLORSVILLE. 

Federal Army 132,000 

Confederate Army 57,000 

Federal excess 75,000 

GETTYSBURG. 

Federal Army 105,000 

Confederate Army 62,000 

Federal excess 43,800 



56 C[)ree ^toties In £Dne 

General Grant's report shows more men in excess than General Lee had in his 
whole army on February 28, 1865, when he fell back from Richmond to Petersburg. 
General Lee's whole force was 39,878 men. On March 1, 1865, his force, with 
nothing to eat and short of ammunition, was 33,000 men, while the report of Gen- 
eral Grant's adjutant-general shows that Grant's army with plenty to eat, all 
the ammunition they needed and plenty of clothing, was 162,000 men — just 129,- 
000 more than General Lee had, all told. 

These figures, comrades, show the reason very clearly why you were com- 
pelled to lay down your arms on that April morn fifty years ago. You 
were not beaten; you were not whipped; nor were you unwilling to continue the 
unequal struggle. None of these causes made you lay down your arms. You were 
outnumbered, you were worn out from starvation and not by General Grant's 
army. Our beloved commander, Robert E. Lee, saw the useless sacrifice of life 
in continuing the hopeless struggle against a well-armed and well-fed army of 
double your numbers and recruited from all quarters of the globe. To that army 
the loss of men meant nothing; to us, one man's loss counted much. 

In surrender the Confederate soldier lost none of his glory. He made a 
record nothing can dim. He snatched from the humility of his surrender to the 
greatly superior numbers of the foe the recognition of the world for his fidelity to 
the cause of right. From that field of Appomattox every Confederate soldier car- 
ried the love and respect of Robert E. Lee and the gratitude of the South and her 
people. And I do believe there was a prayer of thanks to heaven from more than 
one "Yank" that the war was done and he had escaped the deadly fire of your old 
flintlock gun. When the end came the Confederate man of the ranks did not sit 
down and look in idleness upon the wTeck and ruin of the war. No; he took up the 
burden as he foimd it. He brought his intelligence and courage to his assistance 
and began the work of rebuilding upon the ruins left him. He had no capital but 
his intelligence and courage. It was not long before he convinced the world that 
he could build as well as fight; and at no place in the South is the intelligence of the 
Confederate soldier more clearly shown than right here in this battle-scarred 
city of Winchester, made famous the world over by the immortal "Stonewall" 
Jackson and his men. 

If you will take the trouble to investigate you will find I have not put an ex- 
travagant estimate upon the intelligence, courage and energy of the man in gray 
who was down in the mud. He has won rank in the professions; he has made his 
mark in the world of finance; he has acquired a place in the mercantile world. 
In the world of letters you find him and you can always discern his intelligence 
and pluck, hide it as he may. The Confederate soldier stands proudly before the 
world today commanding its respect for his adherence to the story of the past. 
He caimot forget the past, nor can he forget the moral support given to our cause 
in those days of blood by our noble women: I claim, always, for the peerless women 
of 1861-'65 a share in our glory of the past, and I do believe the women of that day 
were a potent factor in the cause. Their moral support and work for our army 
had much to do w^ith our holding out as long as we did. Their love was essential 
to our endurance and victories. Without the love, fidelity and fortitude of our 
grand women I do believe the struggle would have ended before it did. Those 
women of 1861-'65 were truly the ministering angels of the Confederate soldier. 
Their share in our glory cannot be questioned. When we were hungry they fed us, 
when sick they nursed us back to health, when wounded they bathed our wounds 
with a tear, when stricken upon the battle-field, they were the angel messen- 
gers bearing our loved ones far away for the last good-bye. Their story is part 
and parcel of our story. Their deeds are engraved deeply upon the hearts of the 
men who love the past. We bowed, in those days, in admiration of those golden 
locks; today we doff our caps in veneration to the "silver threads among the gold." 



Cfje ^oIDiet 57 



We can never forget the memories of the past nor the work of the noble women 
whose names are written upon the scroll of fame. Theirs is a grand old story 
to tell over and over again. It is a story of love, devotion and fortitude. It is part 
the story of the cause we loved and lost. 

From the birth of the Confederacy to its death on Appomattox field our peer- 
less women gave the world an example of love and devotion that was not surpassed 
by the women of Sparta or Rome. When the true history of the great conflict 
is written our women of '61-65 must have their page with ours. It was written 
long ago in the blood of our bravest men, in the tears of our noblest women. The 
history of the South cannot be written nor the story truthfully told if our women 
of that day have no place in it. As the days go by these noble women are passing 
away. We thank God for His goodness in giving us in our days of trial such wo- 
men. There are few of that noble band left — many have passed over the river and 
are now residents of God's Eternal City of Love. They loved us in life — they love 
us still — and I do believe they plead in prayer for us before God's mercy seat. 

So let us try and live, while on this march through life, that, when the order 
is given us to halt beyond the picket line of life, we may hear, coming through 
the pearly gates, the angel voices of these dear women of the Confederacy, say- 
ing: "Weary, foot-sore, old Confederate soldier, thou hast kept the faith unto 
the end; God, our Father, bids you welcome into rest." 

I would not forget the Daughters of the South today who have taken the 
work of their sainted mothers and friends. God bless you in all your work and aid 
you always, and give you always the loyalty, devotion and strength your mothers 
gave to the cause we loved and lost in the days when the land was deluged with 
the blood of loved ones, defending our homes, the Constitution and the law. 

The following being a signed article and knowing Mr. Elder, I use it as mat- 
ter of interest to the student of history and the public. — The Author. 

STATISTICS OF THE OPPOSING ARMIES. 

Birmingham, Ala., June 11, 1908. 
Editor of the Birmingham News, 

Sir — Believing that some of the veterans visiting your magnificent city, as 
well as other readers of your paper, would be interested in the statistics of the 
United States and Confederate armies of 1861-1865, I give below the official and 
total enlistment in each army, foreign as well as native born, which we divide 
into four armies as follows: 

Germany furnished 176,500 

Ireland 14,420 

England 45,500 

Other countries 253,500 

New York State 448,850 

Pennsylvania 337,936 

Total 489,920 

Illinois 259,092 

Indiana 196,336 

Ohio 313,108 

Total 768,536 



58 Cl)ree Stories 3n 2Dne 

Slave and border states 454,416 

New England states 363,161 

Total 817,577 

Grand Total 2,878,304 

It will be seen from the above enlistments that the United States had^four 
armies equal to or superior in numbers to the Confederate army. 

The grand total of these four armies was 2,878,304. The total enlistment^of 
the Confederate states 600,000, making an excess in the United States army^of 
2,278,304. 

The question which confronts us, is how did these 600,000 men composing 
the Confederate army wear themselves out whipping this immense army of 2,- 
878,304, composed of the best equipped and fed army the world ever saw? 

Will some of my old comrades solve the problem for me? 

Very respectfully. 

J. H. ELDER, of Atlanta, Ga. 



The Peerless Women of the South 



AT THE URGENT REQUEST of dear old comrades of the past, 
whose love and good will I cherish, this tribute to the women 
of the South, past and present, is printed in this book. It is 
only the author's love and respect for our peerless women of the 
United Daughters of the Confederacy. It is fact briefly stated of the 
work of the Southland. In the days when the fanatics of the North 
attempted to destroy the political liberties of the South, the women 
of the Confederacy were the ministering angels of the Confederate 
soldier, as their daughters today are the angels of mercy and charity, 
working for and caring for the Veterans of 1861-'65. The friends who 
urge that this paper shall be printed say it is for the purpose of voic- 
ing the love and loyalty of all true Confederate soldiers, who honestly 
wore the Gray, and that the publ cation may induce our young people 
of today to look up and investigate the part their mothers took in the 
war of 1861-'65. 

Our women of the South were the inspiration of the Confeder- 
ate soldier. On the battle-fie d, in camp, on the march, their love, 
loyalty and devotion taught the world a lesson of fidelity worth the 
learning. It was written on the scroll of fame — a glorious story that will 
never be effaced by Time's relentless hand. None will deny that the 
women of the South of 1861-'65 must have their page in Confederate 
history, and we do hold that if they do not have their page, the his- 
tory cannot be a complete nor correct one of the days when the South- 
land made history of which no man who wore the Gray need be ashamed. 

Our children of the South should certainly be taught in our schools 
and in their homes the true stroy of 1861-'65, and the part their moth- 
ers took in the struggle of Might against Right, that in all places 
and at all times they may be able to refute the slanders of the North- 
ern historians, whose histories were forced in our schools by the Car- 
pet Baggers that were foisted upon us after the War. 

The brightest gems of a nation's coronet are the ashes of its heroic 
dead, and this I grant is true, but there is another priceless gem in 
the Southland's coronet, and this gem is the peerless women of the 
Southland — the noble mothers, the moral support of all nations, who 
teach their children the principles of liberty, justice, and obedience 
to law. These are the principles that make nations great, these the 
principles that make the great soldiers, statesmen, and heroes of all 
nations. It was these principles that gave the Southland in her hour 
of need Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, "Stonewall" Jackson, and the 
other noble leaders of the Confederacy. 



00 Cljree Stories 3Jn i)ne 

No people on earth can claim greater statesmen, grander soldiers? 
nor braver women than the South. The Colonial mothers in 1776 
made the Colonial soldier what he was — invincible. The women of 
the South in the days of our peril made the Confederate soldier the 
ideal soldier of the world. No one can deny that the women of the 
South in 1861-'65were a potent factor in our holding out in the un- 
equal struggle as long as we did. In our darkest days these peerless 
mothers bid us look up to God. They trusted; they prayed for us; 
they worked for us; they stood sponsor for the Infant Confederacy 
when it was baptized in the best blood of the South; they mourned 
with us at the grave of the Republic and buried liberty on Appomattox 
field. 

The women of the Confederacy from 1861-'65 suffered as no other 
women on earth were ever called upon to suffer. At times it was even 
a question of food with which to feed their children. The people on the 
plantations had their property devastated, their homes robbed and 
burned by the Yankee soldiers, while they, themselves, were sub- 
jected to insult by the brutal invader, who ignored all rules of civil- 
ized warfare and humanity. But all this persecution could not shake 
their faith, nor lessen the love they held for the cause of their beloved 
South. "No braver dames had Sparta, no nobler matrons Rome," 
than the South had in her peerless daughters, when the mourning crepe 
hung from every door, when the invader's torch wrought ruin of our 
homes, and when hearts were pierced by sorrow's sword — and this 
was true of all the women of the South. I care not if she came from 
the lowly cot on the hillside, or from the gilded halls of wealth in the 
vale, she was a heroine, a daughter of the South, and she was peerless 
in her devotion. 

Some of these grand women had given their all to the cause they 
loved. Hear the words of the Spartan mother of the South. She had 
given her two older boys to the cause, but hear her words, as she buck- 
led on the sword of her only boy, "My son, your country needs your 
services. Go! Come back to me in honor, or come back on your shield." 
And this was that noble mother's consecration upon her country's 
altar in Liberty's holy name, and she was only one of Southern moth- 
ers. 

On the battle-fields, when the carnage was done, you found these 
noble women ministering to the wounded, taking the last message 
from the dying soldier to his loved ones far away. You found them 
n our hospitals, and from wherever came the cry of distress you found 
these ministering angels of the South, doing their part without osten- 
tation, without murmur. They shared our perils; they must share our 
praise for their love and devotion to the Confederate soldier. Give 
them all this right 



C!)e peerle00 COomen of tbt ^omb 61 

An English gentleman once gave a commission to a celebrated artist 
for a canvas. He said, "Paint for me a picture that will appeal to the 
heart, and not to the eye alone." The artist was in a quandary what 
he should paint. He appealed to an old Crimean soldier for a sub- 
ject, and the soldier took from his pocket an old pen picture of Florence 
Nightingale kneeling at the cotside of a dying soldier, taking his fare- 
well message for his loved ones in an English home. And from that 
crude sketch he painted a picture that has appealed to the heart of 
the world in his beautiful canvas "Consolation," and one that has 
brought more silent prayers from the hearts of men and women than 
any other painting ever has. 

Had this artist asked any loved Confederate soldier for a subject, 
he would have simply handed him a photograph of any one of the 
sainted women of 1861-'65, told him the story of that woman in the 
war, her love, devotion, fidelity, and courage, and what a canvas 
the artist could have given the world. England had one Florence 
Nightingale — God bless her noble soul — but the South had thousands 
of women as devoted and true. When we who wore the Gray now look 
back on those days of blood, and recall the peerless women, there comes 
from way downi deep in our hearts that beautiful prayer, "O God, 
be with us still, lest we forget, lest we forget the ministering angels 
of the Southland, who prayed for us, who worked for us." We owe a 
debt to the women of the war clays, and those of today, but we owe 
to God a greater debt — that he gave us such women in the days of 
our need. 

And may I repeat that our grand women of the war days were the 
ministering angels of the soldiers in Gray. You found them at the 
cotside, in the hospitals, nursing back to life the sick and wounded, 
and I do know that oftimes in their charity their help was extended 
to the Federal soldiers that the fate of the battle had left in our hands. 
And yet, you can find in some of the Northern histories of today the 
slander that our daughters of the South refused aid to the stricken 
Union soldiers in our hospitals. Perish the tongue that uttered such 
slander; wither the hand that wrote such vile falsehoods of the peer- 
less women of the South. 

When the crisis came, our women met it; economy took the place 
of plenty; luxuries were for the hospitals only. The homespun dress 
took the place of fine linen; the sick and wounded was their care, and 
without one selfish thought they divided with the sick and needy 
their scanty hoard of food. In truth they were ministering angels 
of the Confederate soldier. They were the inspiration of the Con- 
federacy. Their deeds of love and charity are deeply engraved upon 
the hearts of all men who wore the Gray. When the story of the Con- 
federacy is truthfully told, when the part our women took in the war 



62 Cf)ree Stories In JSDne 

is read, the world will bow their heads in admiration and veneration 
for the women of the Southland, where honor is held dearer than life 
and womanhood peerless. 

When war's grim harvest was done, these women of the South did 
not halt in their works of mercy, love and charity, ground down as 
they were by the rule of the Carpet Bagger from the North, whose 
hate and malice was exceeded only by his thieving desires. The noble 
women organized themselves into bands and began collecting the 
remains of our heroic dead, placing them in cemeteries, marking each 
sacred grave, and the same gentle hands that soothed the soldiers' 
fevered brows, and bound up their wounds, kept green the sod above 
their heroic graves. But was this all these women did? No. They took 
upon themselves the care and education of the Confederate soldiers' 
orphan children; they took upon themselves the care and support 
of the needy Confederate Veteran who had given his all for the cause 
of the Southern Cross in the struggle for Justice and Right. 

Daughters of the Confederacy of today, when your mothers were 
called to rest, in God's City of Rest, they gave into your hands, they 
bequeathed to you a sacred trust that you should take up this work 
where they left off, that you should go on building monuments, caring 
for the orphans and needy old veterans who wore the Gray, and that 
you should keep green the sod above the graves of our sacred dead, 
and keep alive the grand old story, and traditions of your sainted 
mothers. Have you kept this trust? Let the Confederate veteran 
answer this question for you! And like the roar of the mighty ocean, 
from the mountain tops of old Virginia, from the Gulf Stream of the 
farthest South comes back the answer, "Yes, she has kept the trust, 
proved herself worthy the daughter of a peerless mother." And I 
say that your organization of the United Daughters of the Confed- 
eracy of today has done more to perpetuate the grand old story of the 
past than any other organization of the South. 

Who can say, who dare say that our cause was a Lost Cause? Who 
can say the Confederate soldier will be forgotten while these Daughters 
of the Confederacy are erecting monuments, or placing tablets of brass 
and bronze at some spot in the South to perpetuate the valor and glory 
of the man who wore the Gray. When we have the evidence of all his 
work before us, tell me how it can be possible that the grand old story 
of the past will be a forgotten, untold story? When the Bugle of Time 
shall sound taps for all the men who wore the Gray, these worthy daugh- 
ters of royal mothers will still tell the story of the Confederacy to pos- 
terity, and the world will still tell the story of the Confederacy and will 
always hear the story of Jefferson Davis, the statesman, Robert E. Lee, 
the immortal, "Stonewall" Jackson, the invincible, Ashby, the cavalier. 



Cfte peerless Womm of tfte ^omb 63 

Forrest, the unconquered, Morgan, the dauntless, Pettigrew, the grand, 
Stewart, the peerless, and the other heroic souls who carried the flag 
and led the Confederate soldier to victory on many bloody fields of 
battle. The mothers of today will tell to the lisping babe the story 
of the man in Gray, and it will live forever. 

Tell to the world whatever you will, men of the South, of the women 
of the war and today. I do not care how extravagant it may sound to 
other ears, the man who wore the Gray knows the story is true, he 
knows the women of 1861-'65, in the South, fairly won our adoration 
and love, and all we can say of them is that, as the Daughters of today, 
by their fidelity, loyalty, and charity they have won our love and loyal- 
ty to them. 

We have often thought of an emblem for the United Daughters 
organization, and I found in the Floral Kingdom (that wonderful 
exhibition of God's most exquisite handiwork, where we are lost in 
adoration for his great love for the human race presented to us in 
things beautiful) a fitting emblem for the Daughters of the Confed- 
eracy of today in that matchless combination of beauty and frag- 
rance — the Night Blooming Cereus, which generously contributes 
its odors to the world's store of fragrance, but modestly conceals 
its beauty behind the veil of night. And this is the emblem of the 
Daughters of the South, of the past and of today. They perform their 
works of love and charity without ostentation or show, claiming no 
reward, asking no pay, save that which comes to the heart of a duty 
well done. 

The daughters of the South today are following closely in the foot- 
steps of their peerless mothers, in charity, loyalty, and love. Daugh- 
ters of the Confederacy, the story of the past is yours to tell. Tell 
it over and over again. It will gladden the heart of the old Confed- 
erate veteran. It will take him back to the days when his soul was 
tried by the sword, and his manhood by shot and shell. I wish that I 
could paint for you and the world the grand old story of the noblest 
womanhood of the world. In the Book of Life, in the indelible ink 
of God's 'ove,the story of your sainted mothers of the war days is writ- 
ten. It can never fade; it will never dim. If the curtain of the past 
that hides from this generation the days of the war could be pushed 
back, then indeed would they see the true pictures of their ancestors, 
and you could then fully understand why the Confederate soldier 
loves the woman of the Southland, of the past and present. 

The picture I have tried to paint for you, Daughters of today, of 
our women of 1861-'65 was painted long ago. It was painted when the 
sword flashed death to the flower of the Southland. It was painted by 
the glare of the invader's torch that destroyed our homes. It is the 



64 Cfjtee Stories In SDm 

picture of consecration and love. It is the story of what your mothers 
endured. It cheered the Confederate soldier on to deeds of valor that 
startled the world. Daughters of today, your mothers were indeed 
the inspiration of the Confederate soldier. It was her sublime courage 
and hope that drove despair from our hearts and bid the dove of hope 
spread his white wings about us. When the heart of the South was 
bowed in grief, when hope had fled, we learned to love and venerate 
our noble women, and we knew we possessed the peerless woman- 
hood of the world. They prayed for us and we bow now in love and 
veneration for the consecration they made for us as we felt the love 
and charity for the Confederate soldier today. It comes to us like 
the benediction after the prayer. 

Sons and Daughters of the South, you can only know from tradi- 
tions handed down to you the grandeur of your mothers of the war 
days. You will hand the story down to your children. It is a grand 
old story; guard it well; forget it never! This grand old story of our 
women brings back to the Confederate veteran's heart sweet memo- 
ries in his old age. He lives again the clays of the past. These mem- 
ories fill his old heart ■svith joy. They cling about him like the vines 
of the Orient to the oak, and from his old heart comes the prayer. 
"God bless and keep our noble women of the Southland, our minis- 
tering angels, in charity and love." 

It is sweet to the old veteran in Gray to live in retrospection those 
terrible days of the past. We can now better appreciate the joys and 
forget the pains. In the dreamland of retrospection the women of 
the war days are with us, and we doff our caps in admiration of their 
golden curls. We awake from the dream to the stern reality that Time 
has set his frosty hand upon their heads, and we bow in veneration to 
the silver that has replaced the gold. 

We are all drifting on the river of time in frail barques. We are 
sailing on to the ocean of eternity, and yet we revel in the memories 
of those days, when we donned the suit of Gray and marched away 
to battle for our homes and loved ones. We all hoped to return in 
triumph to lay at the feet of our dear ones laurels honestly won. We 
took no care of the morrow. In the enthusiasm of youth we forgot 
the dangers of war; we heard not the rustle of the wings of death; we 
heard not the voice of destruction, and its attendant death. Some 
who marched away returned; some fell in the fray. They sleep the 
sleep of the brave and true, and their graves are marked and kept 
green by the loving hands of the daughters of today, and these min- 
istering angels of today are keeping the sacred trust given them by 
their mothers, and are teaching the world today a lesson of fidelity, 
loyalty and love. 



Cl)e peerle00 Womtn of tfje ^outi) 65 

The mothers of the war days are, like ourselves, passing away. 
Their ranks, like our own, grow less each day. But they have left 
to us who wore the Gray worthy daughters, who will tell the grand 
old story of their mothers, and will live while time lasts. It is said a 
good story can be ruined by too much telling. This may be true of 
a large majority of stories and causes, but it is not true of the story 
of the Confederacy, and its peerless women, who stood with us in the 
great struggle of the South for liberty, justice, and law. 

The grand women of the South of today have all the force of char- 
acter of their mothers. They have the loyalty, fidelity and love that 
the world admires. Daughters of the United Daughters of the Con- 
federacy, your mothers wrote their story on the scroll of fame for 
you in the days of war. It is your story. Tell it whenever you choose 
and wherever you may. You will always have men who love loyalty 
and fidelity and courage to listen with eager ears Your story is the 
story of the South in her days of peril, and the prosperity of today 
in the South shows her sons could fight and could build upon the 
ruins wrought by war. 

There are but a few of the grand women of the war days left. They 
have crossed over the river into the land of God. They are residents 
of his eternal city of love, and I do believe they plead daily before 
Mercy's throne for us, so I say to every man who wore the Gray, 
"Let us try and live so that when we are called to join our comrades 
now at rest, when we reach the City of Golden Gates we may hear 
the voices of our sainted women saying, 'Weary, footsore, old Confed- 
erate Veteran, thou has kept the faith mito the end. God, our Father, 
bids us v/elcome you into rest.' " 

Daughters of the Confederacy, when you are called to join your 
mothers in that better world, the land of God's love, I pray your 
crowns may be the brightest, studded with the gems of God's love, 
and each crown bear the proud inscription "Daughters of the Con- 
federacy, ministering angels of the South's veteran sons." 

And may I say to you in closing, if the Confederate veteran had a 
thousand lives, he would live them for you, if he had a thousand hearts, 
he would give them all to you! 



Letter from Mrs. Jefferson Davis 



This letter was sent to Major Murray in reply to manuscript 
submitted to Mrs. Davis. 

123 West 44th street, New York. 
My Dear Major Munay: — 

I have not offered you thanks because insensible to your stir- 
ring address or your kindness in affording me the perusal of it, 
but I have an immense correspondence, and am very old and quite 
feeble. Shortly after your letter reached me I was sticken by a 
severe illness from which I have not yet recoverd, and so have not 
made grateful acknowledgment for the noble address, which my 
dear old friend Colonel Park so kindly asked you to send me. 

The "policy of silence," as to my husband's eminent and de- 
voted service and glad sacrifice for the Confederacy, has been pur- 
sued until it has seemed to me that those to whom his whole heart 
was given, had changed towards him. Your eloquent outpouring 
of enthusiastic esteem and confidence in him has put fresh heart in 
m^, and I wish he could have lived to read it. Gratefully and' 
cordially. 

Your friend, 

VARINA JEFFERSON DAVIS. 
February 5, 1903. 



